The ninth mandala of the Rigveda is devoted entirely to which deity?
- A.Soma
- B.Rudra
- C.Vishnu
- D.Ushas
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Soma. The whole of the ninth mandala consists of hymns to Soma, at once a plant, the drink pressed from it and the god of that drink, which shows how central the soma offering was to Vedic sacrifice.
Option B, Rudra, is a minor and feared god in the Rigveda who grows in importance in the later Vedic period and is joined with Shiva. Option C, Vishnu, appears in the Rigveda as a god of three strides but is likewise a minor figure who rises later. Option D, Ushas, the goddess of dawn, receives some of the finest poetry in the Rigveda but not a mandala of her own. Fix the mandala numbers in a single line, because papers ask them in rotation: the third holds the Gayatri Mantra, the seventh the Battle of Ten Kings, the ninth Soma and the tenth the Purusha Sukta.
Read the full article: Vedic Age: Rigveda, Society and Later Vedic Changes
Practice Questions
View allWhich Veda is considered the origin of Indian classical music?
- A.Rigveda
- B.Samaveda
- C.Yajurveda
- D.Atharvaveda
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Its verses are largely borrowed from the Rigveda but are arranged to be sung to fixed melodies during sacrifices, and those melodies are the earliest record of musical notation in India, which is why the Samaveda is called the root of Indian classical music.
Read the full explanation →The Battle of Ten Kings, the Dasarajna, was fought on the banks of which river?
- A.Vitasta
- B.Shutudri
- C.Parushni
- D.Asikni
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The seventh mandala of the Rigveda describes how Sudas, the king of the Bharata tribe, defeated a confederacy of ten tribes on its banks, and the battle is the clearest political event recorded in the whole of Rigvedic literature.
Read the full explanation →The Purusha Sukta, the hymn that first mentions the four varnas, occurs in which mandala of the Rigveda?
- A.Third mandala
- B.Seventh mandala
- C.Ninth mandala
- D.Tenth mandala
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The Purusha Sukta describes the sacrifice of the cosmic being from whose parts the brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra are said to have come, and it is the first statement of the fourfold varna order.
Read the full explanation →Which god is invoked in the largest number of hymns in the Rigveda?
- A.Agni
- B.Indra
- C.Varuna
- D.Prajapati
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He is the god of rain and of war, called Purandara, the breaker of forts, and the largest number of Rigvedic hymns is addressed to him, which matches a people whose life turned on rainfall and on cattle raids.
Read the full explanation →In the Rigveda, which river is described as the naditama, the holiest of rivers?
- A.Ganga
- B.Sindhu
- C.Saraswati
- D.Yamuna
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The Rigveda praises it as the naditama, the best or holiest of rivers, and treats it as a goddess as well as a stream.
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