Prescribed Prose Passages: Comprehension and Content
What this domain tests
Prose extracts in this paper come from the Śvetāmbara canon - most often Āyāra (Ācārāṅga), Sūyagaḍa (Sūtrakṛtāṅga), Nandī, Anuyogadvāra or a narrative Upāṅga. Answers are written in Marathi and ask for the gist, the speaker and setting, and one factual detail from the passage.
Read the frame before the content
Stock openings carry few marks on their own but fix the scene: teṇaṃ kāleṇaṃ / teṇaṃ samaeṇaṃ ("at that time") and the description samaṇe bhagavaṃ mahāvīre arahe sammāsambuddhe. Place names stand in the locative: rāyagihāe ("at Rājagṛha"), campāe, vaṇiyagāme.
The kattā–kamma–kiriyā grid
For every clause mark the verb first (-i, -ti, -nti, -hi, -tu), then the subject in the nominative (-e singular, -ā plural for a-stems), then the object in -ṃ. The verb agrees with the subject.
Worked example
teṇaṃ kāleṇaṃ samaṇe bhagavaṃ rāyagihāe viharai.
- teṇaṃ kāleṇaṃ: instrumental used adverbially, "at that time" - not "by that time".
- samaṇe bhagavaṃ: nominative singular, the subject.
- rāyagihāe: locative of the ā-stem noun Rāyagihā.
- viharai: third singular present of vi-√hṛ, "dwells". The canon narrates past events in the present; Marathi renders it as past. Answer: त्या वेळी श्रमण भगवान रायगृहात राहत होते.
Traps
- Reading every -e as a plural; the a-stem nominative singular is -e, the plural is -ā.
- Translating the narrative present as present tense in Marathi.
- Ignoring the retroflex ṇ in ṇa, ṇāṇa, samaṇe.
- Paraphrasing loosely instead of using the exact term the marking scheme expects (अहिंसा, संयम, तप).
- Confusing hotthā (past of hū, as in vuttaṃ hotthā) with a present form.