History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer
Write brief essay on the Samanta system.
- UPSC 2005
- Early Medieval India, 750-1200
The samanta system was the institutional skeleton of the post-Gupta polity — a graded ladder of subordinate rulers, each bound to an overlord by a fixed bundle of obligations while retaining substantial control over his own territory. Rather than a single office, it was a hierarchy of ranks, each rung carrying its own privileges and…
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
- The Graded Hierarchy of Ranks
- Obligations Owed Upward to the Overlord
- Privileges and Autonomy Retained
- The Samanta System as Evidence for "Indian Feudalism"
- The Decline of the Samanta Order
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