SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 3 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 11 September 2026.

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SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Fill in the blanks: In Carnatic music, a laghu with five beats is known as ____ jaati.

(a)Tishra
(b)Chaturashra
(c)Khanda
(d)Mishra

Answer

Why

Correct — C. In the Suladi Sapta Tala system, a tala's jaati is fixed by how many beats its laghu carries.

The five jaatis run Tishra 3, Chaturashra 4, Khanda 5, Mishra 7 and Sankeerna 9.

A laghu of five beats is therefore Khanda jaati.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Tishra — Tishra jaati gives the laghu 3 beats. Tishra-jaati Eka tala, at 3 aksharas, is the shortest of the 35 talas.
(b)
Chaturashra — Chaturashra jaati gives 4 beats. It is the laghu of Adi tala, Chaturashra-jaati Triputa, which counts 4 + 2 + 2 = 8.
(d)
Mishra — Mishra jaati gives 7 beats, not 5. Seven sits between Khanda's 5 and Sankeerna's 9.

Concept

A Carnatic tala is built from three angas: the laghu, whose length varies, the drutam of 2 beats and the anudrutam of 1.

The Suladi Sapta Tala system has seven tala families: Dhruva, Matya, Rupaka, Jhampa, Triputa, Ata and Eka. Each can take any of five jaatis, giving 7 × 5 = 35 talas.

So a full tala name carries both parts. Khanda-jaati Triputa, for example, is 5 + 2 + 2 = 9 beats.

Do not confuse Khanda Chapu, a separate tala, with the khanda-jaati laghu of 5. Khanda Chapu and Misra Chapu do not fit neatly into the Suladi Sapta Tala scheme.

Key facts

Laghu beats by jaati: Tishra 3, Chaturashra 4, Khanda 5, Mishra 7, Sankeerna 9.
Seven tala families times five jaatis give the 35 talas of the Suladi Sapta Tala system.
Adi tala is Chaturashra-jaati Triputa tala, counting 4 + 2 + 2 = 8 beats.

Study next

The angas of Carnatic tala: laghu, drutam and anudrutamAdi, Rupaka and the Chapu talasHindustani tala terms: sam, khali and theka

Common traps

Mixing up Khanda (5) and Mishra (7) because both come after Chaturashra.
Treating Khanda Chapu as one of the 35 khanda-jaati talas, when it does not fit the Suladi Sapta Tala scheme.

Here the item tests a single number-to-name mapping inside tala theory. Carnatic tala also appears at 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.14, which asks who devised the Trimukhi, Panchamukhi, Saptamukhi and Navamukhi talas.

Related PYQs

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Topic: Culture — all 122 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.