Read the passage given below and answer the questions:"The use of the term…

2026

Read the passage given below and answer the questions:

"The use of the term dharma for law, nevertheless, was neither universal nor inevitable. This is borne out by the first century C.E. author Kautilya’s compendium Treatise on Politics (Arthaśāstra). The significance of Kautilya’s work for the history of law in India rests primarily on the fact that it provides a different and in many respects unique lens into that history. His treatise belongs to a distinct scholarly tradition with social and political priorities different from those represented by the science of dharma (dharmaśāstra), the primary discipline devoted to jurisprudential reflection within the Brahmanical scholastic tradition. Kautilya makes no attempt to reduce the variety of laws within society into the single category of dharma. Indeed, we do not find a single comprehensive term within the Treatise on Politics to refer to law as such, or even to the broad areas of religious and secular norms covered by the term dharma within the discourse of the science of dharma. What is clear, however, is that Kautilya, both formally and in obiter dicta, argues for the plurality of law; law is not one but multiple. Although his text is later than the earliest documents of the science of dharma, it nevertheless taps into an alternate intellectual history that probably ran parallel to the one represented by the science of dharma."

The work of Kautilya is of significance because:

  1. It works as a complete view of the history of law.

  2. It works as an alternate view of the history of law in India.

  3. It works as a scholar's view that is identical to the science of dharma.

  4. It works as a perspective that fits into contemporary ideas on dharma of his time.

  1. A.

    1

  2. B.

    2

  3. C.

    3

  4. D.

    4

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Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: B

The passage explicitly states that Kautilya's work provides a different and unique lens into the history of law in India. It belongs to a distinct scholarly tradition with priorities different from dharmaśāstra and argues for the plurality of law. The text concludes that his work taps into an alternate intellectual history running parallel to the science of dharma. Therefore, Kautilya's work is significant because it offers an alternate view of the history of law in India.

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