SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 7 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

‘Sangken’ is a festival celebrated in Arunachal Pradesh by people of which of the following religions?

(a)Jainism
(b)Islam
(c)Hinduism
(d)Buddhism

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Sangken is the new-year festival of the Theravada Buddhist communities of Arunachal Pradesh, chiefly the Tai Khamti and the Singpho.

It falls in mid-April and is a water festival. Images of the Buddha are carried from the shrine into a ceremonial hut and bathed, and people sprinkle water on one another as purification.

The same Buddhist new year is kept as Songkran in Thailand and as Thingyan in Myanmar.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Jainism — Jain observances are ascetic in form — Paryushana and Mahavir Jayanti turn on fasting and restraint, not on water rites, and Sangken belongs to no Jain calendar.
(b)
Islam — Sangken is not an Islamic observance. The Islamic calendar is lunar and its festivals move through the seasons, whereas Sangken is fixed to mid-April.
(c)
Hinduism — The central rite is the ceremonial bathing of Buddha images in a monastery courtyard, which places the festival outside Hindu practice however familiar a water festival may feel.

Concept

Arunachal Pradesh has dozens of tribes and a festival for most of them, so SSC asks the state by its festival-community pairs.

Two of those pairs are Buddhist and they are not the same Buddhism. Sangken belongs to the Theravada communities of the east — Khamti, Singpho and neighbours. Losar belongs to the Monpa of Tawang, who follow Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism.

Knowing that split answers both questions and explains why one is an April water festival and the other a February new year.

The paper spells the festival Sangken. You will also meet it as Sangken Festival of the Tai Khamti in state material — the spelling varies, the community and the month do not.

Key facts

Sangken is the Theravada Buddhist new-year festival of Arunachal Pradesh.
It is celebrated chiefly by the Tai Khamti and Singpho communities.
It falls in mid-April and centres on the ceremonial bathing of Buddha images.
Losar, observed by the Monpa of Tawang, is the state's other major Buddhist festival.

Study next

Arunachal Pradesh tribe-festival pairs — Nyokum, Solung, Mopin and DreeTheravada and Mahayana Buddhism in the North EastNew-year water festivals of South East Asia — Songkran and Thingyan

Common traps

Assuming any Indian water festival must be Hindu, on the model of Holi.
Mixing Sangken with Losar, which is Buddhist too but Tibetan and kept in Tawang.

SSC asks festival-to-community and festival-to-state in the same breath, and the corpus is full of both — Paryushana to the Jains at 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.17, Hola Mohalla to Sikhism at 25 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.2, and Easter to Christians at 18 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.6.

Store every festival with two tags, the community and the state, because either half can be the one you are given.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.