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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

“Archaeology knows of no Aryans; only literature knows of Aryans.” Examine critically.

  • UPSC 2015
  • Aryans and Vedic Period

The statement captures a genuine methodological difficulty rather than a settled fact: no spade has ever unearthed an object labelled "Aryan," because Arya was never the name of a race, a pot, or a place — it was a self-description used by the composers of the Rigveda, occurring some three dozen times in the text…

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What the full answer covers

  • What the Statement Gets Right: The Untranslatability of a Linguistic Category
  • What the Statement Overstates: A Land the Texts Describe Is Also a Land Archaeology Has Found
  • Reconciling the Two Halves of the Claim

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