NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 8 Fig. 8.6, a map showing a few networks of traditional tīrthas — LET'S EXPLORE
Book page 174 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Can you identify the names of a few traditional tīrthas given in the map above? You can refer to the political map at the end of the book for help.
Fig. 8.6, page 174 — redrawn: a map showing a few networks of traditional tīrthas. Every symbol stands where the book places it and, as in the book, no place is named — that is what the question asks you to work out. In the printed map thin lines of each colour also join the sites of one tradition to one another, which is what makes them ‘networks’.
Answer
The map carries no place names — only symbols, joined by lines. So the task is to read each symbol's position against a political map. The legend gives eight keys: International Boundary, Shakti Pīṭhas (red triangles), Jyotirlingas (dark-blue triangles), Chār Dhāms (light-blue triangles), Kumbh Mela Sites (orange triangles), Sikh Sites (yellow circles), Buddhist Sites (pink squares) and Jain Sites (purple diamonds).
Working symbol by symbol, these tīrthas can be identified with confidence:
Symbol
Position on the map
The tīrtha
Chār Dhām
Uttarakhand Himalaya, about 30½°N 79°E
Badrinath
Chār Dhām
Odisha coast, about 20°N 86°E
Puri
Chār Dhām
Saurashtra coast, about 22°N 69°E
Dwarka
Chār Dhām
Southern tip, about 9°N 79°E
Rameswaram (also a jyotirlinga — the two triangles sit together)
Kumbh Mela
Where the Ganga leaves the hills, about 30°N 78°E
Haridwar
Shakti pīṭha (red)
Ganga–Yamuna confluence, about 25½°N 82°E
Prayagraj — a Kumbh Mela city (page 176), although the map puts a red triangle, not an orange one, on the spot
Shakti pīṭha (red)
Malwa, about 23°N 76°E
Ujjain — also a Kumbh Mela city and the Mahakaleshwar jyotirlinga, though only the red triangle is printed here
Amritsar (Golden Temple / Akal Takht); Anandpur Sahib is the mark to its east
Sikh site
Middle Ganga plain, about 25½°N 85°E
Patna Sahib
Sikh site
Marathwada, about 19°N 77°E
Nanded (Hazur Sahib)
Buddhist site
Eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Nepal border
Sarnath, Kushinagar, Lumbini/Kapilvastu
Buddhist site
Bihar, about 24½°N 85°E, and central India
Bodh Gaya; Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh
Jain site
Southern Rajasthan and Saurashtra
Mount Abu; Girnar and Śhatruñjaya (Palitana)
Jain site
Jharkhand, about 24°N 86°E, and southern Karnataka
Shikharji (Parasnath); Shravanabelagola
Shakti Pīṭha
Kolkata, Guwahati, Kanyakumari, Kangra, and dozens more
Kalighat, Kamakhya, Kanyakumari, Jwalamukhi …
The same map with the tīrthas named — use it to check your own reading of the symbols. (The book’s map carries no names.)
Note on the map itself: the legend lists Kumbh Mela Sites, but only two orange triangles can actually be made out — at Haridwar and at Nashik. At Prayagraj and Ujjain, the other two Kumbh cities named on page 176, the map carries only the red Shakti-pīṭha triangle.
Check it yourself: use the political map at the end of the book and read off latitude and longitude for each symbol before naming it — that is exactly the skill the question is training. Where a red triangle stands alone in an area you cannot identify, it is enough to say “a Shakti pīṭha in this state”.
What the map is really showing: not a list of names but a pattern. The lines join sites of every tradition into networks that cross each other again and again, so that no part of the Subcontinent is left outside. That pattern is the chapter's whole argument in one picture.