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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Compare the economic, social and religious life of the Indus Valley (Harappan) people with that of the early Vedic people and discuss the relative chronology of the Indus and the early Vedic cultures.

  • UPSC 1987
  • Aryans and Vedic Period

The Harappan civilization and the early Vedic order occupied roughly the same north-western theatre of the subcontinent, yet they represent two structurally distinct social formations — one an urbanized, mercantile, script-using society, the other a pastoral, orally-transmitted, tribal one. Comparing their economic, social and religious life across this divide, and then asking how the two…

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What the full answer covers

  • Economic Life: Urban Surplus versus Pastoral Wealth
  • Social Life: Civic Order versus Kin-Based Tribalism
  • Religious Life: Icon and Fertility versus Fire and Sacrifice
  • The Question of Relative Chronology

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