Sanskrit General Knowledge and Cultural Heritage
This is the recall section, but the marks are lost on small confusions of category and number. Learn the sets, then learn what each set counts.
Sets you must know cold
- Four Vedas: Ṛg, Yajur, Sāma, Atharva. Four Upavedas: Āyurveda, Dhanurveda, Gāndharvaveda, Arthaśāstra.
- Six Vedāṅgas: śikṣā (phonetics), kalpa (ritual), vyākaraṇa (grammar), nirukta (etymology), chandas (metre), jyotiṣa (astronomy).
- Six darśanas: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta.
- Eighteen Purāṇas; eighteen parvas of the Mahābhārata; the Bhagavadgītā has 18 chapters and about 700 verses; the Rāmāyaṇa has 7 kāṇḍas.
- Kerala heritage: Kūṭiyāṭṭam (UNESCO proclamation 2001, inscribed 2008), Kathakali, Krishnanattam, Thullal (Kunchan Nambiar), Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady (1993). Sanskrit was declared a classical language of India in 2005.
Worked example
A statement reads: "Chandas is one of the six darśanas." Reasoning: chandas belongs to the Vedāṅgas, whose subject is metre; the darśanas are philosophical systems. The statement is false on category, though both are "six" in number - the trap is numerical similarity, not content.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing eighteen Purāṇas with eighteen parvas.
- Treating śikṣā as "education" rather than phonetics.
- Mixing Kutiyattam's UNESCO dates (2001 proclamation, 2008 inscription).
- Assigning Thullal to Kathakali's repertoire; it is Kunchan Nambiar's satirical form.
- Writing "Sanskrit is the oldest classical language" without the 2005 declaration context.