In the Vedic Literature, Sabha and Samiti are called two daughters of which deity?

Question

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Correct — B, Prajapati. A hymn of the Atharvaveda (VII.12) invokes the two Vedic assemblies together and calls them the two daughters of Prajapati — the speaker prays that Sabha and Samiti, 'the daughters of Prajapati', should be of one mind and favour him when he speaks in them. Giving the assemblies a divine parentage was a way of giving them sanctity alongside the raja. Prajapati, the 'lord of creatures' and creator-god, is the deity who rises to the head of the pantheon in the later Vedic and Brahmana texts, which is exactly the literature in which the Sabha and the Samiti are functioning institutions.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Agni is the fire-god and the priest of the gods who carries the offering — the deity with the second-largest number of Rigvedic hymns after Indra. No Vedic text makes the assemblies his daughters.  (c) Varuna is the upholder of rita, the cosmic and moral order, and the punisher of falsehood — a tempting pick for anything to do with law and order, but the 'two daughters' image belongs to Prajapati.  (d) Rudra is the fierce storm-and-healing deity, the Vedic precursor of Shiva (praised in the Yajurveda's Shatarudriya). He has no connection with the Sabha or the Samiti.

Concept: The Sabha and the Samiti were the two assemblies of the Vedic tribal polity, and Vedic literature personifies them as divine sisters — the Atharvaveda calls them the two daughters of Prajapati. The Samiti was the wider assembly of the whole people (vish), where public and political matters were discussed and where the raja's acceptance was registered; the Sabha was the smaller, more select body of elders and prominent men, which also handled judicial business and met in a hall of its own. Both had real weight in the early Vedic period and both lost ground in the later Vedic age as kingship became hereditary, territorial and ritually magnified.

State PCS 2026 Q51 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q51 — History PYQ with Answer