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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

On the basis of contemporary sources, give an account of Royal land grant in ancient India.

  • Guptas, Vakatakas and Vardhanas

Royal land grants in ancient India are unusually well documented precisely because kings wanted them remembered — inscribed on copper plates that were meant to outlast the transaction itself. Reconstructing the practice therefore means reading two very different kinds of contemporary evidence against each other: normative literature that tells us why land was gifted, and…

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What the full answer covers

  • Literary Foundations: From Vedic Ambivalence to Epic Endorsement
  • The Epigraphic Record: Scale and Chronology
  • The Puzzle of the Imperial Guptas
  • The Vakatakas: The Real Donors of the Age
  • Beyond Kings: Private and Petitioned Grants

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