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."

In simple terms, the first line of the given passage means:

  1. There was nothing unavoidable or locally acceptable about the use of the word 'law' for 'dharma', anyway.

  2. There was nothing inevitable or meaningful about the use of the word 'dharma' for law, anyway.

  3. There was nothing unavoidable or globally acceptable about the use of the word 'dharma' for 'law', anyway.

  4. There was nothing permanent or unavoidable about the use of the word 'dharma' for law, anyway.

  1. A.

    1

  2. B.

    2

  3. C.

    3

  4. D.

    4

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Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: C

The passage explicitly states that using the term 'dharma' for law was neither universal nor inevitable. Kautilya's Arthashastra presents a distinct tradition where laws were not reduced to 'dharma', arguing for the plurality of law. Thus, there was nothing unavoidable or globally acceptable about equating 'dharma' with law.

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