Tanubhrt.This.Side

This chapter introduces us with the past, the concept of past, what are the different things that happened in the past, how people lived, travelled and where things originated in the past. It also tells us about how we can get to know about the past, who can help us.

Questions in this chapter could come relating to following topics –

1. Maps – You could be asked to locate the Narmada river, Sulaiman and Kirthar hills, Garo hills, Indus river and Ganga. It would be good if you can learn about all the rivers that are present in the maps of rivers given.
2. Where do people live? There are few MCQ based questions that could be asked from this part of the chapter. Example of such questions could be –
   • where were the earliest gatherers found ? Near river Narmada
   • which place did people started growing crops? Near Sulaiman and Kirthar hills
   • which were the earliest of crops grown? wheat and barley
   • Where was rice first grown? north to Vindhyas
   • In which place did agriculture first developed? Garo hills to the north east and Vindhyas in the central India.
   • Where were the first cities established? Indus and its tributaries(Ganga)
   • Name one of the earliest and largest kingdom? Magadha, to the south of Ganga

3. What is the difference between manuscript and inscriptions? This is also an important question.

4. The concept of dates. What is meant by 2000 as date?

UNDERSTANDING THE CHAPTER

This chapter begins by telling you the different things that you can get to know about the past. So, we can know about what clothes people wore, the food they ate, the lives lived by hunters, gatherers, kings, queens and other people. It speaks of the things children sang, read etc. It then talks about the places people lived. So, it tells that the gatherers lived near Narmada river. Crops like wheat and barley were first grown in Sulaiman and Kirthar hills. It tells that agriculture was first developed in places in the Garo hills to the north-east and Vindhyas in central India. Rice was first grown north to Vindhyas. Remember, that tributaries are smaller rivers that flow into larger rivers. Like Son is the tributary of Ganga. Some of the first cities flourished near Indus and its tributaries. And one of the first kingdom and also the largest flourished South to Ganga, Magadh.

The chapter then talks about the reasons that people travelled from one place to another. So, they did it either to escape the extreme weather of the flood or drought, sometimes to conquer land, sometimes the religious leaders travelled to offer instruction and advice. While others travelled in the spirit of adventure.

The chapter also tells us that our country(India) is actually known by two names – Bharat and India. India comes from Indus, also called Sindhus in Sanskrit. When Iranians and Greeks came to India, they were familiar with Indus and started to call it Indos or Hindos. The name Bharata was used for people living in the north west, who are mentioned in Rig Veda.

Then the chapter talks about the different sources using which archaeologists find out about the past. It tells us about manuscripts which was basically text written on the palm leaves and inscriptions which was text that was inscribed either in stones or metals. Then we get to know that when we talk about the past, we often talk in plural sense, because past is always different for different groups of people. So, people living in Andaman had a different life from people living in cities.

The chapter then goes on to explain the concept of dates. So, basically the year 2000 means 2000 years after the birth of the Christ. All dates before that are before Christ, BC.

Note – Archaeologist and historians both study history, but through different perspectives; historians study history through documented evidence whereas archeologists study history through physical evidence.

PRACTICE QUESTIONS

These questions are created by our content developers for practice.

Fill in the blanks –

1. Some of the earliest skilled gatherers lived around the river ___________________
2. Women and men first began to grow crops in _______________________________
3. Agriculture first developed in ______________
4. Rice was first grown in places near __________________
5. Some of the earliest cities developed on the banks of ______________________
6. ___________, ___________________ and _________________ form the natural frontiers of a sub – continent.
7. Two words often used to describe our country are __________________ and ____________
8. The earliest composition in Sanskrit is ________________, dating back to _______________.
9. __________ are prepared from the bark of a tree, known as _____________, which grows in ______________.
10. The writings on relatively hard surfaces are known as ______________
11. The people who study the things used and made in the past are called _________
12. ______ consists of letters and signs.
13. BC stands for ________________, while AD stands for _______________
14. CE stands for ______________, while BCE stands for ________________

Answers

1. Narmatha
2. Sulaiman and Kirthar hills
3. Garo hills to the north-east and Vindhyas in Central India
4. Vindhyas
5. Indus and its tributaries
6. hills, mountains and seas
7. India, Bharat
8. Rigveda, 3500 years ago
9. Manuscripts, birch, Himalyas
10. inscriptions
11. archaeologists
12. Scripts
13. before Christ, Anno Domini
14. Common Era, Before Common Era

Happy Learning 🙂