CDS (II) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 53 of 120

Correct — B, Yava and Dhanya. The Rig Veda is a text of a pastoral society that also farmed, and its vocabulary of cultivation is thin. The one cereal it names is yava, barley, which appears in the context of ploughing, sowing and the preparation of food and offerings; dhanya is the general word for grain or corn rather than a particular species. That is the whole of the Rig Vedic cereal vocabulary, and it is why historians describe the early Vedic economy as a barley economy. The other three pairs belong elsewhere. Godhuma, wheat, and vrihi, rice, are Later Vedic words, appearing once agriculture had shifted east into the Ganga valley where rice could be grown. Tila is sesame and khala a threshing floor, so that pair is not a pair of cereals at all. Priyangu and shyamaka are millets, again of the Later Vedic texts.

• (a)Godhuma and Vrihi — Godhuma is wheat and vrihi is rice, and both are Later Vedic terms. Rice cultivation belongs to the eastward movement into the Ganga valley, after the Rig Vedic period.
• (c)Tila and Khala — Tila is sesame, an oilseed rather than a cereal, and khala is the threshing floor. The pair does not answer the question as asked.
• (d)Priyangu and Shyamaka — Priyangu and shyamaka are millets named in the Later Vedic literature, not in the Rig Veda.

The Rig Vedic economy was mainly pastoral, with cattle as the measure of wealth — words for wealth, war and even a chief's duty are built from the root for cow. Agriculture existed but was secondary, and barley was its crop. In the Later Vedic period, as settlement moved from the Punjab into the Ganga-Yamuna doab and further east, iron tools and the availability of moisture made rice and wheat possible, and the vocabulary of the texts widens correspondingly.

This item is really about periodisation, and the pairs are chosen to test it. The safe method is to ask, for each term, whether it belongs to the barley world of the Punjab or the rice world of the eastern Ganga plain. Vrihi is the giveaway — rice in a Rig Vedic list is an anachronism. Watch the pair in option (c) as well: a good examiner will slip in a term that is not a cereal at all, and khala, the threshing floor, is exactly that. A useful cross-check is that the Rig Veda's agricultural vocabulary is otherwise limited to the plough, the furrow and the sickle, which is what you would expect of a society that farmed a little and herded a great deal.

• Yava, barley, is the cereal named in the Rig Veda; dhanya is the general word for grain.
• Godhuma, wheat, and vrihi, rice, belong to the Later Vedic vocabulary, not to the Rig Veda.
• The Rig Vedic economy was primarily pastoral, with cattle as the principal measure of wealth.
• Later Vedic settlement moved eastward into the Ganga-Yamuna doab, where rice cultivation and a wider crop range appear in the texts.
• Tila is sesame and khala the threshing floor; priyangu and shyamaka are millets of the Later Vedic texts.

• Reading vrihi into the Rig Veda; rice is a Later Vedic term.
• Treating tila as a cereal; it is sesame, an oilseed, and khala is not a crop at all.
• Imagining the Rig Vedic economy as primarily agricultural; it was primarily pastoral, with barley as the one cultivated cereal.

As a vocabulary-to-period item, testing whether a Sanskrit term belongs to the Rig Veda or to the Later Vedic literature.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sanskrit term 'vrihi', for rice, appears in which body of Vedic literature?

  • (a)The Rig Veda
  • (b)The Later Vedic texts
  • (c)The Rig Veda and the Later Vedic texts equally
  • (d)Neither — it is a post-Vedic word

  Answer(b) The Later Vedic texts — rice cultivation belongs to the eastward movement into the Ganga valley.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following best describes the economy of the Rig Vedic people?

  • (a)Primarily pastoral, with barley as the cultivated cereal
  • (b)Primarily agricultural, with rice as the staple
  • (c)Primarily trading, based on long-distance sea routes
  • (d)Primarily hunting and gathering

  Answer(a) Primarily pastoral, with barley as the cultivated cereal — cattle were the measure of wealth.