SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 3 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

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Determine the correctly matched pair for Gupta-era obligations.

(a)Dasaparadha – fines from ten offences
(b)Bhoga – free-labour levy
(c)Adeya – registry-keeping duty
(d)Dhanya – forced labour

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Dasaparadha literally means 'the ten offences'. In the inscriptions it really stands for the fines for the ten offences.

That is how D.C. Sircar's Indian Epigraphical Glossary (1966) explains it, adding that a grant made 'sa-dasaparadha' seems to carry the right to enjoy those fines. The pair matches → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Bhoga – free-labour levy — Sircar explains bhoga as the periodical supplies of fruits, firewood, flowers and the like that villagers gave the king. Unpaid labour had its own name, vishti.
(c)
Adeya – registry-keeping duty — Adeya means 'what is to be taken or levied', a general word for dues or imposts. Records belonged to the akshapatala, the department of records and accounts.
(d)
Dhanya – forced labour — Dhanya is grain, the produce of the fields, a share of which was payable to the king or landlord. Forced labour was vishti, not dhanya.

Concept

Gupta-era land grants name the royal dues that passed to the donee: bhaga, the king's share of the produce, bhoga, periodical supplies in kind, and levies in grain and cash.

Grants could also make over the fines for the ten offences (dasaparadha). Unpaid labour owed to the king or landlord had a separate name, vishti.

The meanings used here are from D.C. Sircar's Indian Epigraphical Glossary. Several terms carry more than one sense there. Bhoga, for instance, can also mean a jagir or a territorial unit, but none of its senses in the glossary is a labour levy.

Key facts

Dasaparadha: literally 'the ten offences', in grants the fines for those offences.
Bhoga: periodical supplies of fruits, firewood, flowers and the like given to the king.
Vishti: unpaid, forced labour owed to the king or landlord.
Akshapatala: the department of records and accounts.

Study next

Gupta land-grant terms: bhaga, bhoga, kara and hiranyaAgrahara grants and the privileges they carriedGupta officials such as the Akshapataladhikrita, keeper of records

Common traps

Reading bhoga as a labour levy: in fiscal use it means supplies in kind, and labour is vishti.
Taking dhanya as a duty or service: it is grain, the crop from which the king's share was paid.

Here Gupta vocabulary is tested as term-and-meaning pairs. Gupta officer titles are tested the same way at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.3 and 18 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 154 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.