Tanvi, a student of history, is preparing a project on journeys made between the tenth and seventeenth centuries. She begins with a map of the routes that linked Central Asia, Persia, Africa and Europe with the subcontinent. Then she imagines a young man from a distant country arriving at a busy port on the western coast and spending his first months there. She wants to know what such visitors chose to write about, and whose voices are present or missing in the records that have come down to us. Finally, she makes a list of travel accounts to look for in the library.
When Tanvi looks for travel accounts written by women of this period, what is she most likely to find?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Practically no accounts by women survive, though women are known to have gone on long trips
Option (1) A few accounts by women survive, and they deal mostly with affairs of the court — Incorrect. Accounts dealing with affairs of the court do survive, but they are by men. No such set of women's accounts has survived.
Option (2) Practically no accounts by women survive, as few women went on long trips in that age — Incorrect. The first half is right, but the reason is wrong. Women did go on journeys; the gap lies in the records that survive.
Option (3) Practically no accounts by women survive, though women are known to have gone on long trips — Correct. Practically no accounts of travel left by women have survived, though we know that they travelled. Women and men both travelled, but only men's accounts have come down to us.
Option (4) A few accounts by women survive, and they deal mostly with religious issues — Incorrect. Some surviving accounts focus on religious issues, but these too are by men. Women's travel accounts are practically absent.
NCERT (2026-27): “Perceptions of Society FIVE (c. tenth to seventeenth century) “Those who visit or come to stay in a new land invariably encounter a world that is different:” “in terms of the landscape or physical environment as well as customs, languages, beliefs and practices of people. Many of them try to adapt to these differences; others, somewhat exceptional, note them carefully in accounts, generally recording what they find unusual or remarkable. Unfortunately, we have practically no accounts of travel left by women, though we know that they travelled.” |