Which one of the following does not refer to the bow (and arrow) as a weapon of war in ancient India?

Correct — B, Kunta. Sanskrit has an unusually rich vocabulary for the bow, and three of these four options belong to it. Sharnga is the bow of Vishnu, which is why one of his epithets is Sharngin, the bearer of the Sharnga. Kodanda is the bow of Rama, familiar from the epithet Kodandarama. Karmuka is a general Sanskrit word for a bow, without the mythological attachment of the other two. Kunta is the odd one out: it means a spear or lance — a shafted weapon held or thrown, not a missile weapon shot from a string. The distinction is a real one in the classical fourfold division of arms, where weapons are grouped by how they are used: mukta, released or thrown; amukta, never released and kept in the hand; muktamukta, capable of either; and yantramukta, discharged by a machine. The bow's arrow is a released weapon and the lance is a hand-held one, so kunta sits in a different class from the other three names entirely.

• (a)Sharnga — The bow of Vishnu. His epithet Sharngin means precisely 'bearer of the Sharnga bow', so this one does refer to a bow.
• (c)Kodanda — The bow of Rama, preserved in the name Kodandarama. Very much a bow.
• (d)Karmuka — A general Sanskrit term for the bow. Less famous than the other two because it carries no divine owner, which is exactly what makes it a plausible-looking wrong answer here.

Ancient Indian texts classify weapons by how they are delivered rather than by what they are made of. The standard fourfold scheme is mukta (released — the arrow, the discus), amukta (not released — the sword, the mace, the lance), muktamukta (usable either way — the spear that can be thrown or thrust) and yantramukta (discharged by a machine). The bow, dhanush, is the archetypal weapon of the kshatriya, and archery, dhanurveda, gave its name to the whole science of arms.

The item is answerable by elimination through mythology, which is the practical route. Two of the four names are attached to gods and heroes whose epithets carry the weapon in them — Sharngin for Vishnu, Kodandarama for Rama — so those two are certainly bows. Karmuka is less familiar and therefore feels like the odd one out, which is the trap: the unfamiliar word is the ordinary generic term. Kunta is the actual outsider, and it is worth fixing in memory as the lance, because it recurs in medieval military vocabulary too. A wider habit is useful here: when a question offers four Sanskrit weapon names and asks which does not belong, check whether the odd one differs in class — thrown versus shot versus hand-held — rather than merely in fame.

• Sharnga is Vishnu's bow, giving him the epithet Sharngin.
• Kodanda is Rama's bow, preserved in the name Kodandarama.
• Karmuka is a general Sanskrit word for a bow, with no particular divine owner.
• Kunta means a spear or lance — a shafted weapon, not a bow.
• Weapons are classified in the tradition as mukta (released), amukta (hand-held), muktamukta (either) and yantramukta (machine-discharged); the arrow is mukta, the lance amukta.
• Dhanurveda, literally the science of the bow, is the name given to the whole discipline of arms.

• Assuming the least familiar name must be the odd one out; karmuka is unglamorous but is still a bow.
• Reading kunta as a variety of bow because the other three are — the question is testing whether you know it is a lance.
• Confusing Sharnga (Vishnu's bow) with Pinaka (Shiva's bow) or Gandiva (Arjuna's).

As an odd-one-out over Sanskrit weapon names, or as a weapon-to-owner match involving Gandiva, Pinaka, Sharnga and Kodanda.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Gandiva, a celebrated bow in the Mahabharata, was wielded by

  • (a)Bhima
  • (b)Arjuna
  • (c)Karna
  • (d)Drona

  Answer(b) Arjuna — Gandiva is Arjuna's bow, as Sharnga is Vishnu's and Kodanda is Rama's.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the traditional Indian classification of weapons, an arrow shot from a bow belongs to which category?

  • (a)Amukta
  • (b)Mukta
  • (c)Muktamukta
  • (d)Yantramukta

  Answer(b) Mukta — weapons that are released from the hand or the string. The lance, held and thrust, is amukta.