Where is the earliest literary reference to the river Narmada found?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Shatapatha Brahmana. The Narmada — known in Sanskrit literature by its older name 'Reva' — receives its earliest surviving literary mention in the Shatapatha Brahmana, a major prose text of the Vedic corpus (Shukla Yajurveda tradition). This text chronologically predates the Puranas, the Manusmriti, and Varahamihira's 6th-century CE work by many centuries.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) A dharmashastra (legal and social code) text compiled well after the Vedic Brahmanas — it is not primarily a geographical source and postdates the Shatapatha Brahmana.  (c) Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita is a 6th-century CE astronomical/geographical treatise — far later than the Vedic-era Shatapatha Brahmana, even though it does discuss the Narmada region.  (d) One of the later Puranas, which describes the Narmada's sacred geography extensively — but the Puranic corpus as a whole is chronologically later than the Vedic Brahmanas.

Concept: The Shatapatha Brahmana ('Brahmana of a hundred paths') is one of the most important prose texts of the Vedic corpus, generally dated by scholars to roughly the 8th–6th centuries BCE. Brahmana texts interweave Vedic ritual instruction with geographical and mythological references, making them prime sources for the earliest literary mentions of Indian rivers, including the Narmada (referred to there as 'Reva').

State PCS 2024 Q92 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

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