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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Origins and meaning of the samanta system.

  • UPSC 1991
  • Guptas, Vakatakas and Vardhanas

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The term samanta travelled a long semantic distance — from a neutral geographic descriptor in the Mauryan age to the technical marker of a graded, subordinate ruling class in the post-Gupta polity. Explaining the samanta system means tracing both what changed in the word and what changed in the political economy that produced the change.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • From "Neighbour" to "Subordinate": the Word's Career
  • Institutional Meaning: the Samanta-Chakra
  • R.S. Sharma's Thesis: Land Grants and the Making of Samantas
  • Historiographical Qualifications
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