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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 7 The chapter in four points — Before we move on …

Book page 122 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
The Vedas, India's earliest texts, gave rise to several schools of thought. Vedanta and Yoga are among the best known.
Answer

Follow the line from a text to a school of thought — the chapter draws it in three steps.

The Vedas — four collections of hymns, memorised and recited
↓
The Upaniṣhads — texts that built upon Vedic concepts and added new ones: rebirth, karma
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Schools of thought — Vedanta (everything is one divine essence, brahman) and Yoga (methods to realise brahman in one's consciousness)
VedantaYoga
Its central claim or aimEverything — human life, nature and the universe — is one divine essence, brahman, sometimes just tat, 'that'To achieve the realisation of brahman in one's own consciousness
Its characteristic sentenceaham brahmāsmi — “I am brahman”; tat tvam asi — “You are That”Not a sentence but a method — Yoga is something you do
What follows from itThe ātman in every being is one with brahman, so everything is connected and interdependent — hence sarve bhavantu sukhinah, “May all creatures be happy”Understanding is not enough; it has to be realised in one's own experience

“Together, these schools of thought became the foundations for what we call ‘Hinduism’ today” — so Hinduism, in this chapter's account, is not one founder's teaching but the meeting of several older streams.

Tip: keep brahman (the one divine essence), Brahmā (a deity) and brahmin (a social group) apart. The book warns you about the first two on page 109; students lose marks on this every year.
Q2.
Buddhism and Jainism departed from the authority of the Vedas and laid emphasis on some specific values and practices.
Answer

“Departed from the authority of the Vedas” is the exact point of difference. Both accepted dharma, karma and rebirth — but neither accepted that a teaching is true because the Vedas say so. Each built its own system on what its founder had realised.

BuddhismJainism
Founder as the chapter names himPrince Siddhārtha Gautama, born at Lumbini (today in Nepal), about two-and-a-half millenniums ago; Chapter 4 took 560 BCE as an approximate yearPrince Vardhamāna, born near Vaiśhālī in modern-day Bihar, in the early 6th century BCE; Jainism's roots “are said to be much more ancient”
The turning pointAt 29, saw an old man, a sick man, a dead body — and an ascetic who appeared happy and at peace. Left palace, wife and sonAt 30, decided to leave home and go in search of spiritual knowledge
What he attained, and howMeditated many days under a pipal tree at Bodh Gaya; realised that avidyā and attachment are the source of suffering, and conceived a method to remove them. Became the Buddha, 'the awakened one'Practised ascetic discipline and after 12 years achieved 'infinite knowledge' or supreme wisdom. Became Mahāvīra, 'great hero'
Values emphasisedAhimsa; a sincere inner discipline — “Not by water is one made pure … one is pure in whom truth and dharma reside”Ahimsa, anekāntavāda (truth has many aspects), aparigraha (non-possession); the interdependence of all creatures
Practice and communityThe Sangha — bhikṣhus and later bhikṣhuṇīs — dedicated to practising and spreading the teachingsAscetic discipline; monks and sometimes nuns travelling to spread the teaching

Both sent monks and nuns travelling across the land. Some built monasteries in faraway places; others lived in caves cut into the rock. Archaeology has found those monasteries — and sometimes “the names of the monks who lived in the rock-cut caves and slept on the stone beds!”

The name that tells you what kind of victory each tradition wanted: ‘Buddha’ means the awakened one, and jina — the root of ‘Jain’ — means conqueror, but of ignorance and attachments, “not … the conquest of territory or enemies”. Two founders born in royal families, and both took the vocabulary of kingship and turned it inwards.
Q3.
Although these schools had different principles and methods, they also shared some important concepts; they were all looking for the cause of suffering and the means of removing ignorance.
Answer

This is the trunk of the tree the chapter opened with. Different branches, one trunk.

Shared conceptWhat it means here
DharmaRight conduct and the order that upholds the world — a word all three traditions use, each in its own way
KarmaOur actions and their results — introduced by the Upaniṣhads and accepted by Buddhism and Jainism too
RebirthTaking birth again and again; the Jātaka tales are stories of the Buddha's own former births
An end to suffering and ignoranceThe whole point of the search. The Buddha named avidyā and attachment; jina means the conqueror of ignorance and attachments; and Yoga's methods aim at realisation, which is the opposite of ignorance
Shared valuesAbove all ahimsa, which the chapter calls central to Indian culture and which is “shared to a large extent” between Jainism, Buddhism and the Vedantic school

And where they genuinely differ — the chapter does not smooth this over:

  • The authority of the Vedas — accepted by the Vedic schools, not accepted by Buddhism and Jainism.
  • What lies behind the world — one divine essence, brahman, for Vedanta; not so for the Buddhist and Jain analyses; and nothing beyond matter at all for the Chārvākas.
  • Method — ritual and knowledge, inner discipline and meditation, or ascetic practice. Different roads.
The chapter's own image: many roots, one trunk, many branches Vedanta brahman, ātman Yoga methods of realisation Buddhism ahimsa, the Sangha Jainism anekāntavāda, aparigraha Folk and tribal practice, art, deities THE COMMON TRUNK dharma · karma · rebirth · shared values the search for an end to suffering and ignorance The Vedas and the Upaniṣhads Oral traditions carried by practice Folk and tribal beliefs and practices Sindhu-Sarasvatī civilisation (Ch. 6) ROOTS — “Like any ancient tree, it has many roots and many branches.”
The chapter's opening and closing image, drawn out. Read it from the bottom up: roots feed one trunk, and out of the trunk grow branches that stay different from one another while sharing everything below.
Tip: if a question asks you to “compare” these schools, always give both halves — first what is shared (dharma, karma, rebirth, the end of suffering, ahimsa), then where they part (the authority of the Vedas). An answer that gives only the differences, or only the similarities, has told half the truth.
Q4.
Tribal belief systems and art have interacted for millenniums with Hinduism. There was free borrowing and giving from every side. Tribal belief systems generally regard the land and its features as sacred; they often have, at the same time, a higher concept of divinity.
Answer

Three claims are packed into this bullet. Take them one at a time.

The claimThe evidence in the chapter
1. Interaction for millenniums, in both directionsJagannath of Puri was, by tradition, originally a tribal deity, as were various forms of the mother-goddess; on the other side, some tribes adopted Hindu deities long ago and have their own versions of the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. André Béteille: the influence has run both ways “since the beginning of history and before”
2. The land and its features are sacredMountains, rivers, trees, plants, animals “and some stones too” are held sacred because there is consciousness behind all of them. The Toda of the Nilgiris hold over thirty peaks to be the residences of a god or goddess — so sacred that they will not even point at them
3. And at the same time, a higher divinityDonyipolo in Arunachal Pradesh, the combined form of the Sun and the Moon, “who later rose to the higher status of a supreme god”; Khandoba in parts of central India; Singbonga among the Munda and Santhal, “a supreme deity who created this whole world”

Why the third claim is in the summary at all. Because it corrects the mistake the chapter tests you on in the very next exercise: “Tribal belief systems are limited to belief in spirits and minor deities” — false. Many tribal belief systems hold both a multiplicity of local deities and a supreme being, in the same way that Hinduism does.

What ‘free borrowing and giving from every side’ actually rules out: it rules out the picture of a big tradition absorbing small ones. Béteille's sentence is deliberately balanced — the influence of Hinduism on tribal religions “is widely accepted, but it is equally true” that Hinduism has been influenced by tribal religions, “not only in its formative phase but throughout its evolution”. Nobody here is only a receiver.
Looking ahead: “We will further develop this point in the next chapter.” Chapter 8 continues with India's cultural roots, and the banyan tree photograph closing this chapter is described as an illustration for the themes of Chapters 7 and 8 together.
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