SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 5 of 99

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 10 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.

Chariot festival is dedicated to Lord Jagannath along with Subhadra and _________ .

(a)Hanuman
(b)Sudama
(c)Balabhadra
(d)Arjuna

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The Puri chariot festival moves three deities, not one: Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra, and their sister Subhadra.

The stem already names Jagannath and Subhadra, so the blank has to be the third of the trio.

Each of the three rides a separate chariot, pulled by hand from the Jagannath temple to the Gundicha temple in the month of Ashadha. That third deity is Balabhadra, option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Hanuman — Hanuman belongs to the Ramayana tradition. He has no place in the Puri sanctum, whose three images are worshipped as a sibling group.
(b)
Sudama — Sudama is Krishna's childhood friend in the Bhagavata stories, not a sibling, and he is not one of the three deities enshrined at Puri.
(d)
Arjuna — Arjuna is the Pandava prince of the Mahabharata, and Subhadra is his wife in that epic — which is exactly why he is offered here. The chariot beside hers carries her brother Balabhadra.

Concept

The Jagannath temple at Puri, Odisha, enshrines a triad rather than a single image: Jagannath, worshipped as a form of Vishnu, with Balabhadra and Subhadra.

Once a year, in the month of Ashadha, the three leave the sanctum and travel by chariot to the Gundicha temple, returning some days later. That procession is the Rath Yatra, and 'chariot festival' in an SSC stem means this.

Because the deities come out into the street, they can be seen by anyone, without entering the temple at all.

Key facts

The Puri triad is Jagannath, his elder brother Balabhadra and his sister Subhadra.
The Rath Yatra takes the three from the Jagannath temple to the Gundicha temple in Puri, Odisha.
The festival falls in the month of Ashadha, which corresponds to June or July.
Each of the three deities rides a chariot of its own.

Study next

The Jagannath temple at Puri and its place among the Char DhamTemple festivals of Odisha and the months they fall inDeities, their siblings and their emblems as SSC pairs them

Common traps

Answering Arjuna because Subhadra is his wife in the Mahabharata.
Reading 'chariot festival' as a generic label rather than the Puri Rath Yatra.

The same triad is asked outright at 11 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.20, which wants the three idols installed in the Jagannath temple, and the festival itself at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.20.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.