SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 17 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 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.

The Aryans lived in the land known as ‘Sapta Sindhu’ (Land of the Seven Rivers). Which of the following was NOT a part of it?

(a)Ravi
(b)Shipra
(c)Jhelum
(d)Indus

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Sapta Sindhu, the Rigvedic land of seven rivers, means the Indus and the five rivers of the Punjab, with the Sarasvati usually counted as the seventh.

So option (a) Ravi is the Vedic Parushni, option (c) Jhelum is the Vitasta and option (d) Indus is the Sindhu itself. All three are inside the group.

The Shipra flows in Madhya Pradesh, past Ujjain, hundreds of kilometres from the north-western river system → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Ravi — The Ravi is the Vedic Parushni, one of the five Punjab rivers and the river on whose bank the Rigvedic Battle of the Ten Kings was fought.
(c)
Jhelum — The Jhelum is the Vedic Vitasta, the westernmost of the five Punjab rivers and squarely inside Sapta Sindhu.
(d)
Indus — The Indus is the Sindhu — the river the name Sapta Sindhu is built on. It cannot be the exception the question is looking for.

Concept

Sapta Sindhu is the Rigvedic name for the region the early Vedic people occupied: the Indus basin and the Punjab plains, running into what is now Haryana.

The seven are the Sindhu (Indus), Vitasta (Jhelum), Asikni (Chenab), Parushni (Ravi), Vipasha (Beas), Shutudri (Sutlej) and the Sarasvati.

Learn the Vedic-to-modern pairs rather than the bare list. The odd-one-out form used here is easier than that: it only needs you to spot a river that is not in the north-west at all.

Identifications of the seventh river differ, since the Sarasvati is not straightforwardly traceable on a modern map. Nothing in this question turns on that argument: the Shipra is central Indian on any reading.

Key facts

Sapta Sindhu is the Rigvedic name for the Indus and the five rivers of the Punjab, with the Sarasvati usually counted as the seventh.
Vedic to modern: Vitasta is the Jhelum, Asikni the Chenab, Parushni the Ravi, Vipasha the Beas and Shutudri the Sutlej.
The Shipra flows through Madhya Pradesh past Ujjain, one of the four Kumbh Mela sites.
The Rigvedic Battle of the Ten Kings was fought on the Parushni, the modern Ravi.

Study next

Rigvedic geography and the later Vedic shift eastward to the Ganga-Yamuna doabVedic river names and their modern equivalents, Sindhu through ShutudriThe four Kumbh Mela sites and the river at each

Common traps

Reading Sapta Sindhu as seven channels of the Indus. It names one region after its rivers.
Assuming every river in a Hindu sacred list belongs to the Vedic north-west.
Hunting for the Sarasvati among the options and losing time. The question only needs the one river that is not north-western.

This one is an odd-one-out, and the geography settles it without the Vedic names: three of the four rivers are north-western and the fourth is not. Ancient India recurs at 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.19 on the founder of the Pala dynasty.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Geography — all 111 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.