Comprehension:
Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length. Krishna Menon’s record of the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop), established half a century ago, has not been equalled by anyone from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which are frequently compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally longer than the works that the modest Homer could manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are certainly great epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly enriched when I encountered them first as a restless youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as sheer entertainment. But they proceed from story to story woven around their principal tales, and are engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas, and alternative perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and counterarguments spread over incessant debates and disputations.
The arguments are also, often enough, quite substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gita, which is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle between two contrary moral positions—Krishna’s emphasis on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on avoiding bad consequences, on the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the great war that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the correctness of what they are doing are raised by Arjuna, the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just and honorable royal family (the Pandavas), who are about to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas).
According to the passage, the moral debate in the Mahabharata occurs
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Before the war begins.
The passage says that the debate between Krishna and Arjuna "occurs on the eve of the great war", while Arjuna watches "the two armies readying for war". On the eve of means just before, so the debate takes place before the war begins.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: During the war. — Incorrect. Wrong time: the armies are only "readying for war"; the fighting has not started.
Option 2: When the war was about to end. — Incorrect. Wrong time: the debate comes "on the eve" of the war, at its start, not at its end.
Option 4: When the Pandavas stare in the face of defeat. — Incorrect. Not mentioned: Arjuna is called "peerless and invincible"; his doubts are about "the correctness of what they are doing", not about defeat.