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Class 6	Exploring Society: India and Beyond	Social Science	14 of 14
Class 7	Our Environment	Geography	7 of 7
Class 7	Our Pasts – II	History	8 of 8
Class 7	Social and Political Life – II	Polity	8 of 8
Class 8	Resource and Development	Geography	5 of 5
Class 8	Our Pasts – III	History	8 of 8
Class 8	Social and Political Life – III	Polity	8 of 8
Class 9	Exploration	Science	2 of 13
Class 9	Understanding Society: India and Beyond – I	Social Science	9 of 9
Class 9	Understanding Society: India and Beyond – II	Social Science	6 of 6
Class 10	Understanding Economic Development	Economics	5 of 5
Class 10	Contemporary India – II	Geography	7 of 7
Class 10	India and the Contemporary World – II	History	5 of 5
Class 10	Democratic Politics – II	Polity	5 of 5
Class 10	Science	Science	13 of 13
Class 11	An Introduction to Indian Art – Part I	Art & Culture	8 of 8
Class 11	Biology	Biology	3 of 19
Class 11	Indian Economic Development	Economics	8 of 8
Class 11	Fundamentals of Physical Geography	Geography	14 of 14
Class 11	India: Physical Environment	Geography	6 of 6
Class 11	Themes in World History	History	7 of 7
Class 11	Indian Constitution at Work	Polity	10 of 10
Class 11	Political Theory	Polity	8 of 8
Class 11	Psychology	Psychology	8 of 8
Class 11	Introducing Sociology	Sociology	5 of 5
Class 11	Understanding Society	Sociology	5 of 5
Class 12	Biology	Biology	13 of 13
Class 12	Introductory Macroeconomics	Economics	6 of 6
Class 12	Introductory Microeconomics	Economics	5 of 5
Class 12	Fundamentals of Human Geography	Geography	8 of 8
Class 12	India: People and Economy	Geography	9 of 9
Class 12	Themes in Indian History – I	History	4 of 4
Class 12	Themes in Indian History – II	History	4 of 4
Class 12	Themes in Indian History – III	History	4 of 4
Class 12	Contemporary World Politics	Polity	7 of 7
Class 12	Politics in India since Independence	Polity	8 of 8
Class 12	Psychology	Psychology	7 of 7
Class 12	Indian Society	Sociology	7 of 7
Class 12	Social Change and Development in India	Sociology	8 of 8

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← Understanding Society: India and Beyond – I — all chapters

Class 9Social ScienceUnderstanding Society: India and Beyond – IChapter 1

Understanding Social Science

≈ 30 min read · 2 Prelims and 0 Mains questions from this chapter

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Start here: why this chapter matters

In simple wordsBefore a long trip you open the map and look at the whole route. This chapter is that map for the next two years of Social Science: it tells you what the subject is, which four ‘lenses’ it uses, how each lens works, and why any of it matters to you as a citizen.

This is Chapter 1 of the new integrated Grade 9 book Understanding Society: India and Beyond – I, which mixes geography, history, political science and economics in one volume. It is short — 12 pages — and has no end-of-chapter exercises: only a Let's Analyse group activity, a Let's Explore box on the School Bhuvan portal, seven ‘look beyond’ questions, two margin glossaries and nine figures (one screenshot and eight photographs of historical sources). Its parts: what Social Science is; Social Science in everyday life; society through time and traditions; Social Science as a family of disciplines; then Geography, History, Political Science and Economics in turn; why study Social Science; its future; and your two-year journey. Because it is an introduction, we use eight short concept sections, several of them lighter than in a content chapter — we do not pad. Every count and date is recomputed; our additions are marked †.

Matching live chapters (read these next for depth): Geography — kegy201 (Class 11: Geography as a Discipline) and legy101 (Class 12: Human Geography — Nature and Scope). History and its sources — lehs101 (Bricks, Beads and Bones: the Harappan civilisation and how archaeologists read it) and lehs102 (Kings, Farmers and Towns: inscriptions, Brahmi, coins, the Arthashastra, Samudragupta). Political Science — keps101 (Political Theory: An Introduction, with Kautilya among the thinkers) and keps208 (Local Governments: Panchayati Raj). Economics — leec201 (Introductory Microeconomics: scarcity and choice) and keec101 (the economy on the eve of Independence). The wider family — kesy101 (Sociology and Society) and kesy105 (Doing Sociology: research methods).
In this book: the next eight chapters are the four lenses in action — iest102–103 (geography), iest104–105 (history), iest106–107 (democracy and elections), iest108–109 (economics).
UPSC, honestly: this is a new, foundational book; UPSC questions were set from the older Class 6–12 books, so most Previous Year Questions map to the senior chapters above, not here. What this chapter gives you is vocabulary that recurs in Prelims history and culture — epigraphy, numismatics, carbon-14 dating, the Arthaśāstra, Bhuvan — and a frame for GS1 and Essay answers. We link two Prelims questions whose core this chapter actually teaches: carbon-14 dating of archaeological remains (1993) and what ‘Bhuvan’ is (2010).

Word	What it means here
Social Science	The systematic study of human society — what happens, where, and also why and how
Discipline	An organised field of study with its own questions and methods (Geography, History …)
Spatial perspective	Looking at where things are and why that location matters
Temporal perspective	Looking at how things change over time
GIS	Geographical Information System: software that stores and layers data tied to places
Historiography	The way history is written, and the study of how historians work
Empirical evidence	Information gathered by actual observation or experiment (the book's margin glossary)
Itihāsa-purāṇa	The Indian tradition of preserving cultural memory through narratives (epics and Purāṇas)
Literary source	A written text from the past: manuscripts, travelogues, memoirs, letters, records
Archaeological source	Material remains: monuments, buildings, excavated sites, artefacts, sculpture, painting
Epigraphic source	Words inscribed on durable material — stone, metal plates, rock (epigraphy = study of inscriptions)
Numismatic source	Coins, currency and medals (numismatics = study of coins)
Genealogical record	A record tracing family lineage — births, marriages, deaths (margin glossary)
Pañchamahābhūtas	The ‘five great elements’: earth, water, fire, air, space
Vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam	‘The world is one family’
Dharma · artha · rājadharma	Moral duty · economic well-being · the duties of the ruler
Sustainable development	Meeting present needs without harming future generations' ability to meet theirs

Reading the chapter opening (page 1)A painted banner runs across the top: tall apartment blocks on the left; a great tree whose roots hold a lump of golden earth; green fields with a farmhouse and grazing animals; snowy mountains behind a factory with smoking chimneys; and on the right a river cutting through fields and trees. A QR code in the margin links to NCERT's e-content. The point: city and village, nature and industry sit in one landscape — the connected world the chapter sets out to explain.

At a glance — the six ideas to carry away

Social Science = the systematic study of human society — what and where, and also why and how. Natural sciences study the natural world; social sciences study society, institutions, cultures and interactions.
A day's life rests on four systems: governance, economic production, social cooperation and the natural environment. Society ‘does not function by chance’ — history, geography, institutions, resources and choices shape it.
Indian traditions in the book: Pañchamahābhūtas — earth (Pṛthvī), water (Āpaḥ), fire (Agni), air (Vāyu), space (Ākāśa); vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam — the world is one family; Arthaśāstra, attributed to Kauṭilya — NCERT: ‘about 2,300 years ago’ (many scholars: the surviving text is later).
Drought = one event, five lenses (environment, economy, politics, society, culture) → Social Science is a group of disciplines: four core in Grades 9–10 — Geography, History, Political Science, Economics; Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology and Psychology in the wider family.
Geography: spatial + temporal perspectives; tools — maps, globes, atlases, GIS, infographics, the School Bhuvan portal (NRSC). History: itihāsa-purāṇa tradition vs modern empirical historiography (genetics, carbon-14, archaeology); sources — literary, archaeological, epigraphic (inscriptions), numismatic (coins).
Political Science: how power is distributed, decisions made, policies carried out; Panchayati Raj as grassroots democracy; dharma, artha, rājadharma; Vedas, Upaniṣads, Purāṇas, Mahābhārata, Śukranīti, Arthaśāstra. Economics: choices under limited resources; consumers, producers, governments; growth ↔ stability, efficiency ↔ fairness; sustainable growth.

1. What Social Science is — and how it shows up in your day

In simple wordsA physics teacher asks why a ball falls. A social science teacher asks why your town's market is where it is, why prices went up, why your grandmother speaks a different dialect, and who decided where the bus stop goes. Same curiosity — but turned on people living together.

People live in societies and depend on one another. Their lives are shaped by the environment, the institutions that govern them, the economic activities that meet their needs, and the traditions and ideas handed down. Social Science studies these connections. The book's short definition: the systematic study of human society. It tells us what happened and where things are, but also why events occur and how people live together, how environments influence life, how governments function, how economies operate, and how past and present together shape the world. Physics, Chemistry and Biology study the natural world; Social Science studies society, institutions, cultures and human interactions.

Everyday life: your house is built of materials from many places; your food was harvested, processed, transported, bought and sold by many hands; you travel on roads planned and kept by public authorities; your school follows educational policies; your electricity comes from distant power stations over a vast network. Even simple acts rely on four systems — governance, economic production, social cooperation and the natural environment. Then the book looks wider and asks seven questions (why crowded cities and scattered villages, different languages and traditions, farming regions and industrial ones, how governments decide for millions, why some regions flood, why farming flourishes in some places, how climate change affects us). Its conclusion: society does not function by chance; it is shaped by history, geography, institutions, resources and human choices, and Social Science answers through observation, evidence and logical reasoning.

One ordinary day and the four systems behind it (our drawing; the four systems are the book's, the links and discipline labels are ours †).

	Natural sciences	Social sciences
Studies	the natural world — matter, energy, living things	society, institutions, cultures, human interactions
Examples (book)	Physics, Chemistry, Biology	Geography, History, Political Science, Economics (+ Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology)
Typical question	Why does water boil at 100 °C at sea level? †	Why do some regions depend on farming while others focus on industry or trade?
Method	observation, experiment, measurement	observation, interviews, surveys, documents, comparison across times and places
Can it run a controlled experiment?	often	rarely — people and societies cannot be re-run, so comparison and evidence carry the weight †

Reading the ‘look beyond’ questions and the Let's Analyse box (page 2)

Seven questions in a bulleted list (cities and villages; languages and traditions; farming vs industry or trade; government decisions; floods; agriculture; climate change). The point: each is a ‘why’ or ‘how’ question about society, and each needs more than one discipline to answer. Outlines in the in-text section.
Let's Analyse (an orange-headed box with a small drawing of two students walking together): find one change in your locality over the past five years — transport, housing, education, technology or environment — and discuss in groups what it was like earlier, what changed, what caused it and how it affected people; write a short report. The point: you are already a social scientist when you observe, compare and explain. The book adds that such observations show society as one connected story, not separate pieces.

⤵ Doing the Let's Analyse activity (the four prompts, in order)

Pick one visible changetransport, housing, education, technology or environment — in the last five years

Beforewhat was the situation earlier? ask elders, look at old photos

Afterwhat exactly has changed? measure if you can

Causewhat might have caused it? policy, money, technology, climate, people moving

Effecthow has it affected different people? who gained, who lost

Reporta short written account, presented in class

2. Society through time — and India's traditions of inquiry

In simple wordsYour family's way of cooking, celebrating and earning was not invented yesterday — it grew over generations, changing a little each time. Society is the same: to understand today, you trace how it got here. And people have been asking ‘how should we live together?’ for thousands of years.

Society has changed greatly over thousands of years. Early communities depended directly on nature; with time people learnt to grow crops, domesticate animals, build settlements, make tools, exchange goods and organise governance; villages grew into towns and towns into cities; ideas, inventions and cultural exchange transformed ways of life. The book says this spirit of inquiry has deep roots in India's knowledge traditions, where early thinkers valued discussion, questioning and logical reasoning, and explored knowledge through observation, reflection and dialogue. It gives three examples:

Pañchamahābhūtas (‘five great elements’, from Indian philosophical traditions): the world as composed of earth (Pṛthvī), water (Āpaḥ), fire (Agni), air (Vāyu) and space (Ākāśa). In the book's reading it treats nature as an interconnected system in which human life is embedded, and helps explain how the environment shapes settlement, occupations, architecture, food habits and health — still relevant as societies face environmental challenges. The margin note calls it, in philosophical terms, ‘an early attempt’ to see nature as a system.
Vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam — ‘the world is one family’: the interconnectedness of societies across regions and cultures, which the book links to how Social Science studies global interactions.
The Arthaśāstra (NCERT spells it Arthaśhāstra), attributed to Kauṭilya and, in the book's words, composed about 2,300 years ago: it examined administration, economic management, taxation and the duties of rulers to their people — showing that systematic thinking about governance and the economy existed long before modern academic disciplines.

The five elements as the book describes them, and how it says the idea is used; the comparison box is Beyond NCERT †.

Modern Social Science, the book says, continues this legacy with new tools. To understand the present we trace continuity and change: how societies evolved, institutions developed and people's relationship with the environment changed. So social scientists observe people's lives, conduct interviews and surveys, examine documents and compare different times and places; gathering information from many sources, they build explanations supported by evidence — showing what endures, what changes, and how today's actions shape the future.

⤵ From depending on nature to cities (the book's sketch of change over time)

Depending directly on naturefood, shelter and survival from the surroundings

Crops and animalspeople learn to farm and domesticate

Settlements and toolspeople stay in one place and make more things

Exchange and governancegoods are traded; systems of rule are organised

Villages → towns → citiesideas, inventions and cultural exchange transform life

⤵ How a social scientist builds an explanation

Observepeople's lives, places, institutions

Askwhat, where, why, how — and for whom

Gather evidenceinterviews, surveys, documents, comparisons of times and places

What endurescontinuity

What changeschange

Explainan account supported by evidence, open to revision when new evidence comes

Reading the Pañchamahābhūtas margin box (page 3)A side note in the margin names the five elements with their Sanskrit terms and says scholars use the idea to explain natural processes, the human body and the relation between living beings and the environment. The point: an old idea read as a way of seeing nature as one system. Our pentagon diagram above restates it; the comparison with Greek and Chinese lists is ours.

A debate, not a verdict: when was the Arthaśāstra composed?

NCERT and the traditional attribution: composed by Kauṭilya (also called Chāṇakya and Viṣṇugupta), the minister of Chandragupta Maurya (r. c. 321–297 BCE). NCERT's ‘about 2,300 years ago’ works out to roughly 275 BCE (our arithmetic) — close to the Mauryan court, which was about 2,320–2,350 years ago.
Many historians of the text (for example Thomas Trautmann's 1971 study of its style and vocabulary, and Patrick Olivelle's 2013 translation) argue that the version that survives was compiled and revised in stages, reaching its present form between about the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE, while possibly preserving older Mauryan-era material.
What both sides accept: it is a systematic treatise on statecraft, administration, taxation, law and the king's duty to his subjects' welfare; the manuscript was identified in 1905 and published by R. Shamasastry in 1909 (English translation 1915) — Beyond NCERT, as on lehs102. In an exam, write ‘attributed to Kauṭilya’ and avoid a single precise date.

Read carefully — traditions

Five elements, and the fifth is Ākāśa — space (often translated ‘ether’), not ‘metal’ or ‘wood’. Wood and metal belong to the Chinese wuxing (five phases) — a classic mix-up.
Vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam is found in the Mahā Upaniṣad and is echoed in the Hitopadeśa and Pañcatantra (Beyond NCERT) — not the Arthaśāstra (a wrong pairing offered in UPSC Prelims 1992). India's G20 presidency (2023) used the theme ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam — One Earth, One Family, One Future’ (Beyond NCERT, a bare fact).
The book says the Arthaśāstra is attributed to Kauṭilya — keep that verb; authorship and date are discussed above.

3. One problem, many lenses: Social Science as a family of disciplines

In simple wordsWhen you are ill, a good doctor checks your temperature, your diet, your sleep and your worries — not just one thing. A society's problems are like that too: you need several specialists looking at the same patient.

Human society is complex, and no single field can explain it. The book's example: a drought affects crops (environment), farmers' incomes (economy), government relief (politics), migration to cities (society) and traditional ways of coping with scarcity (culture). So Social Science is not a single subject but a group of related disciplines, each focused on a different aspect of human life, together giving a connected picture. In Grades 9–10 it draws mainly on four core disciplines: Geography (the Earth, its environments and people's relationships with their surroundings), History (the human past and how societies change), Political Science (governance, power, and citizens' rights and responsibilities) and Economics (how societies produce, distribute and use resources). Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology and Psychology also belong to the wider family — exploring social relationships, ethical reasoning and human behaviour — and come in higher grades.

NCERT's drought example drawn as one event seen through five lenses (our drawing; the matching of society and culture to particular disciplines is ours †).

Discipline	Its core question (our phrasing †)	A question it would ask about the drought †
Geography	Where, why there, and how do places affect each other?	Which regions are drought-prone, and why — rainfall, soil, groundwater?
History	How and why did things change over time?	How did past droughts and famines unfold, and what was learnt?
Political Science	Who has power, and how are decisions made?	Who decides on relief, and how are the affected heard?
Economics	How are limited resources used?	What happens to farm incomes, food prices and jobs?
Sociology	How do groups and relationships work?	Who migrates, and how do families and villages change?
Anthropology	How do cultures live and adapt?	What traditional water-harvesting and coping practices exist?
Psychology	How do individuals think and feel?	How does stress affect farmers' decisions and health?
Philosophy	What is right, and why?	What do we owe those hardest hit — and future generations?

Reading the discipline list (page 4)Text only — no figure. Four one-line definitions in a bulleted list, after the drought example. The point: each discipline asks different questions, yet all are interconnected and together give a holistic understanding. Our table adds one example question per discipline.

Read carefully — disciplines

Four core disciplines in Grades 9–10: Geography, History, Political Science, Economics. Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology and Psychology are the wider family, studied later — don't list them as the core four.
‘Social Science’ (the school subject, a family) vs ‘social sciences’ (the many disciplines) — the book uses both senses.

4. Geography — where, why there, and how places connect

In simple wordsAsk why your nearest big market is beside the highway and the river, not on the hill. The answer mixes nature (flat land, water) and people (roads, buyers). Geography is the habit of asking ‘why here?’ — and ‘what changed here over time?’

Geography studies the location and distribution of places, objects, materials and people, and the relationships between human societies and their surroundings. It looks at both the physical features of the Earth's surface and the human communities living on it: how people interact with nature and how places shape human life. It asks where things are, why they are there, and how places near or far affect one another over time. It sees the world as a system of interdependencies and is holistic, joining spatial perspectives (location and its significance) with temporal ones (change over time). It draws on the natural sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) and the social sciences (Political Science, Economics, History) — for example, to explain why India has historically been a hub of global interaction, and how the peninsula's long coastline aided contact with Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Its tools: maps, globes, atlases, GIS, infographics and other instruments.

Geography as a bridge subject, its three questions and the tools the book names (our drawing).

Coming up over two years (the book's list): processes that shape the Earth's surface and landforms; atmosphere and climate; oceans; major biomes and India's biosphere reserves; geospatial technologies; life in different regions of India and the world; geographical and socio-economic perspectives on selected issues; and the history of geographical knowledge.

Reading Fig. 1.1 and the Let's Explore box (page 5) — the screenshot described in words, not reproducedFig. 1.1 is a screenshot of the School Bhuvan: NCERT page on the Bhuvan geoportal of the National Remote Sensing Centre: a blank panel on the left with a ‘zoom to extent’ button, and a large satellite image of South Asia and the surrounding seas on the right, with drawing and save tools along the top. The Let's Explore box invites you to map your own village or city on the portal. The point: geography is done with digital tools today, and anyone can view satellite imagery of their home area. We do not reproduce the screenshot or draw any map; try the portal yourself.

Beyond NCERT — Bhuvan and GIS, dated

Bhuvan (‘earth’) is the geoportal of ISRO, run by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad, launched in 2009: it shows Indian satellite imagery and thematic maps, with 2D and 3D viewing (UPSC Prelims 2010 asked exactly this — a geoportal, not a satellite or a telescope).
A GIS stores data with a location attached and lets you stack it in layers — rainfall over soil over roads over villages — to see patterns and plan.

Read carefully — geography

Spatial = location and its significance; temporal = change over time. Don't swap them.
Bhuvan is a web portal (software), not a satellite; the imagery comes from Indian remote-sensing satellites.
The book counts Geography as drawing on both natural and social sciences — so it is neither purely one nor the other.

5. History — traditions of memory, and the evidence historians use

In simple wordsImagine piecing together your great-grandmother's life. You have family stories (memory), a few letters (texts), her brass pot and wedding photo (objects), a name carved on a temple bell she donated (inscription) and an old coin from her purse (money). A historian does the same for a whole society — and checks each clue against the others.

History is the study of the human past, through which societies understand people's experiences, values and change. There are many ways to interpret the past and to pass cultural values on. The book calls the itihāsa-purāṇa tradition one of the oldest and most influential ways of preserving cultural memory in Bharat: through stories it shares historical information, gives events and people cultural meaning, and reinforces ideals, identity and purpose. Traditions differ in method — some stress moral and philosophical insight, others documentary verification. Modern historiography, by contrast, relies increasingly on empirical evidence and scientific tools — human genetics, carbon-14 dating, archaeology — to fix timelines.

Sources: history writing draws on literary sources and traditions — travelogues, memoirs, correspondence, genealogical records, folklore and oral traditions, revenue documents — and on archaeological sources, the material remains: monuments, buildings, excavated sites, artefacts, objects and art such as sculpture and painting, often analysed with scientific instruments and laboratory tests. Two picture pages add epigraphic sources (inscriptions) and numismatic sources (coins), with margin definitions: inscriptions on durable material give direct evidence of events, rulers, administration and society; coins tell us about the economy, chronology, rulers, trade, political boundaries and culture through their metal, inscriptions and symbols.

The book's four kinds of historical source, with its figures under each (our drawing; the note on classification is ours †).

The dated examples among Figs 1.4–1.9 and the Arthaśāstra on one to-scale strip (our drawing; dates other than the captions' are Beyond NCERT †, as used on lehs101, lehs102 and lehs203).

Reading Figs 1.2 and 1.3 — literary sources (page 7)

Fig. 1.2 ‘The Sāmaveda manuscript, National Museum, New Delhi’: a cream paper leaf densely written in Devanagari script, with a catalogue number pencilled at the top. The point: sacred and literary texts survive as manuscripts copied over centuries — the copy is much younger than the text. (The Sāmaveda is the Veda of chants; most of its verses come from the Rigveda — Beyond NCERT.)
Fig. 1.3 ‘A traditional palm-leaf manuscript of the Tirukkuṟaḷ, an ancient Tamil text of ethical wisdom’: a long, narrow, brown palm leaf incised with Tamil script, with two string holes. The point: in south India, palm leaves were the common writing material, and ethical literature is also a historical source. (The Kuṟaḷ has 1,330 couplets in 133 chapters of ten, in three books — virtue 38, wealth 70, love 25; our sum checks — Beyond NCERT.)

Reading Figs 1.4 and 1.5 — archaeological sources (page 7)

Fig. 1.4 ‘A terracotta figurine from the Sindhu-Sarasvatī Civilisation’: a small reddish clay figure sitting with knees drawn up and arms folded in front, with a beak-like face. The point: everyday objects of baked clay, found in excavation, tell us about crafts and beliefs where no readable text exists (the Harappan script is still undeciphered — Beyond NCERT).
Fig. 1.5 ‘A sculpture of Viṣṇu from the 12th century CE’: a dark stone relief of a standing, crowned four-armed figure with smaller attendant figures on either side, framed by a carved arch. The point: sculpture records religious ideas, dress and artistic style, and helps date sites by style.

Reading Figs 1.6–1.9 and the two margin definitions — epigraphic and numismatic sources (page 8)

Fig. 1.6 ‘Brahmi inscription on part of a pillar belonging to the Gupta period’: a broken grey stone fragment with several rows of curving letters. The point: inscriptions give dated, first-hand statements — but often in broken pieces. (The rounded letters of this period are often called the Gupta form of Brahmi — Beyond NCERT.)
Fig. 1.7 ‘Kannada inscription of Emperor Krishnadeva Raya at the underground Shiva temple, Prasanna Virupaksha Temple, Hampi’: a tall slab with a pointed top, covered in close lines of Kannada script, set in a stone wall. The point: rulers recorded grants and deeds in the regional language; Vijayanagara's capital at Hampi is full of such records (lehs203).
Fig. 1.8 ‘A coin issued by King Samudragupta, 4th century CE’: a gold coin with a seated figure holding a stringed instrument, and letters round the rim. The point: coins show the issuer's image and titles, the metal shows the economy's wealth, the style the age (Gupta gold coins are called dīnāra — Beyond NCERT).
Fig. 1.9 ‘A Mughal coin issued during the reign of Jahangir, showing the zodiac sign Sagittarius’: a gold coin with a running archer figure — half human, half horse — against a sunburst. The point: symbols on coins reveal a ruler's tastes and the ideas of the time; figurative images are unusual on Mughal coins, which mostly carry only writing (Beyond NCERT).
Margin definitions: epigraphic source — texts, decrees or records inscribed on stone, metal plates or rock, giving direct evidence about events, rulers, administration and society; numismatic source — coins, currency or medals, from which historians read economy, chronology, rulers, trade, boundaries and culture.

Reading the two margin glossaries (page 6)Empirical evidence: information collected by actual observation or experiment. Genealogical records: documents tracing lineage across generations — births, marriages, deaths. The point: the first is how modern historians test claims; the second is a literary source that also carries the memory of families and dynasties.

⤵ Reading a coin like a historian (Fig. 1.8 or 1.9 as the example)

Metalgold, silver or copper — how rich, how much trade

Inscriptionthe ruler's name and titles; sometimes a mint and a date

Symbols and imagesbeliefs, tastes, courtly culture (a musician-king; a zodiac sign)

Find-spot and numberwhere coins turn up shows trade routes and reach of power

Cross-checkagainst inscriptions and texts before writing a date or a claim

Text or object	What NCERT says	Other dated positions (Beyond NCERT, attributed)
Sāmaveda (Fig. 1.2)	a Sāmaveda manuscript (no date for the text)	Mainstream philology places the Vedic hymns broadly in the 2nd and early 1st millennium BCE (NCERT's own lehs101 gives the Rigveda c. 1500–1000 BCE); some Indian scholars argue for much earlier dates. The manuscript itself is far younger than the text.
Tirukkuṟaḷ (Fig. 1.3)	‘an ancient Tamil text of ethical wisdom’	Tamil Nadu's official Thiruvalluvar era counts from 31 BCE (so 2026 = Thiruvalluvar year 2057, our arithmetic); many literary historians (e.g. Kamil Zvelebil) date the text to around the 5th–6th century CE. Estimates range widely.
Arthaśāstra	attributed to Kauṭilya; about 2,300 years ago	Traditional: Mauryan, late 4th century BCE. Many text historians: compiled in stages, c. 1st c. BCE – 3rd c. CE (see section 2).
The civilisation of Fig. 1.4	‘Sindhu-Sarasvatī Civilisation’	Also called the Harappan or Indus Valley civilisation (the name used in NCERT's Class 12 lehs101); mature phase c. 2600–1900 BCE (lehs101).

Positions side by side: memory traditions and modern historiography

The book's framing: the itihāsa-purāṇa tradition preserves cultural memory, gives meaning and identity, and is one of the oldest ways of keeping the past in Bharat; modern historiography adds empirical and scientific methods. It presents both as ways of knowing the past.
Historians who stress verification treat the epics and Purāṇas as valuable sources for beliefs, values and social life, whose statements about specific events and dates must be tested against independent evidence — inscriptions, coins, excavation, scientific dating.
Historians who stress the tradition's own logic argue that it reflects a distinct Indian sense of the past — organised around genealogy, place and moral meaning — and should not be judged only by modern documentary standards.
For an exam: describe each on its own terms, then say how evidence is cross-checked; no ranking is needed.

Positions side by side: what to call the civilisation of Fig. 1.4

‘Sindhu-Sarasvatī Civilisation’ — the name in this new book. It names two river systems; those who use it identify the dry Ghaggar–Hakra channel with the Sarasvatī of the Rigveda and point to the many sites along it.
‘Harappan’ or ‘Indus Valley’ civilisation — the names in NCERT's Class 12 book (lehs101) and most international archaeology. ‘Harappan’ follows the convention of naming a culture after its first excavated site (Harappa, 1921); some scholars question the identification of the Ghaggar–Hakra with the Rigvedic river.
All three names refer to the same Bronze Age urban culture; UPSC questions have mostly used ‘Harappan’ or ‘Indus’. Recognise all three.

Beyond NCERT — carbon-14 dating in one paragraphLiving things take in carbon, including a tiny share of radioactive carbon-14. After death no new carbon comes in, and the carbon-14 decays with a half-life of about 5,730 years: after 11,460 years a quarter is left (our check). Measuring what remains dates organic material — wood, charcoal, bone, shell, seeds, cloth — back to roughly 50,000 years, by which time under 0.3% is left. It cannot date stone or metal directly: a stone sculpture is dated by style, inscriptions or the layer it lies in. Developed by Willard Libby (1949; Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1960). UPSC Prelims 1993 asked which method dates archaeological wood, bones and shells — carbon-14.

Read carefully — sources

Epigraphy = inscriptions; numismatics = coins; palaeography = the study of old scripts (Beyond NCERT). Don't swap them.
The book's sentence lists travelogues, memoirs, letters, genealogies, folklore and revenue documents after ‘archaeological and literary traditions such as’ — all of those are literary/documentary; archaeological sources are the material remains. Safe line: ‘texts are literary sources; material remains are archaeological; inscriptions and coins are epigraphic and numismatic sources (often grouped under archaeology)’.
Krishnadeva Raya's Hampi inscription is in Kannada, though the king is famous for Telugu literature (Āmuktamālyada) — Beyond NCERT.
‘Brahmi’ is a script, not a language; inscriptions in Brahmi may be in Prakrit or Sanskrit.
Carbon-14 dates once-living material only.

6. Political Science — power, institutions and the duties of rulers

In simple wordsIn your class, who chooses the monitor, who sets the rules for the cricket match at break, and what happens if someone breaks them? Those are questions about power, rules and fairness — Political Science asks them about a whole village, state or country.

Political Science studies governance: how and why power is distributed, decisions made and policies carried out. It studies constitutions, governments and state institutions, and also social movements, nation-building, foreign policy, and how power is exercised, shared and regulated in society and everyday life. The book's example: Panchayati Raj embodies grassroots democracy by giving villagers a voice in local planning — showing that power lives not only in formal institutions but also in social relationships, customs and ideas of legitimacy. To study politics is to study society, ‘its hierarchies and its struggles’ for more effective and accountable governance.

Indian political thought, the book says, began early, alongside reflection on how society should be organised. Politics was not a separate discipline but tied to dharma (moral duty), artha (economic well-being) and rājadharma (the ruler's duties). The Vedas, Upaniṣads and Purāṇas discuss justice, authority, social order and the responsibilities of kings and citizens; the Mahābhārata and the Śukranīti address governance, law and ethical leadership; the Arthaśāstra stands out as a foundational text on how a state should be governed, taxes collected, the army run and the people's welfare secured. The approach was holistic — politics linked to economics, social life, morality and defence — and power was seen as a responsibility rather than a privilege. The book connects this tradition to modern institutions such as Panchayati Raj. Coming up: democracy, elections, authority, civil society, governance and public policy, and national security.

Idea or text (book)	What it is about	Note (Beyond NCERT †)
Dharma	moral duty	a wide word: duty, right conduct, law, order
Artha	economic well-being	one of the four aims of life (with dharma, kāma, mokṣa)
Rājadharma	the duties of the ruler	discussed at length in the Śānti Parva of the Mahābhārata
Vedas, Upaniṣads, Purāṇas	justice, authority, social order, duties of kings and citizens	dates debated; see the table in section 5
Mahābhārata	governance, law, ethical leadership	an epic compiled over many centuries
Śukranīti	governance, law, ethical leadership	traditionally ascribed to the sage Śukra; scholars date the surviving text variously, some quite late — verify before quoting a date
Arthaśāstra	how to govern, tax, run the army, ensure welfare	attributed to Kauṭilya; see the dating debate in section 2
Panchayati Raj (today)	grassroots democracy, local planning, participation	73rd Constitutional Amendment Act 1992, in force 24 April 1993; three tiers — village, block, district (keps208)

Reading the Political Science pages (page 9)Text only — no figure or box. Three paragraphs: what Political Science studies, India's early political thought, and what is coming. The point: politics is studied in institutions and in everyday relationships, and India has a long tradition of thinking about the ruler's duty.

Positions side by side: reading ancient texts for modern government

The book's view: ancient ideas — power as responsibility, rājadharma, welfare — ‘continue to shape’ India's democratic practices, as in Panchayati Raj.
Constitutional historians trace the 73rd Amendment mainly to modern sources: Gandhi's idea of village self-rule (gram swaraj), Article 40 of the Directive Principles (1950), and committees such as Balwantray Mehta (1957), Ashok Mehta (1978) and L.M. Singhvi (1986) — keps208.
Political theorists point out that ancient texts were written for kings, not for elected governments with equal citizens; they read them for ideas about duty and welfare, not as blueprints for democracy (keps101).
These views can sit together: ancient ideas as moral inspiration, modern law as the legal basis. No verdict is needed in an answer.

Read carefully — political science

Rājadharma = the ruler's duty, not ‘the ruler's rights’; the book stresses power as responsibility.
Panchayati Raj got constitutional status by the 73rd Amendment (1992; in force 1993); the 74th did the same for urban local bodies — Beyond NCERT.
The book lists the Mahābhārata and the Śukranīti together; keep their dates apart — they are of very different ages.

7. Economics — choices with limited resources

In simple wordsYou have ₹100 for the week and want a book, a snack every day and a bus pass. You cannot have everything, so you choose. A family, a company and a whole country face the same problem on a bigger scale — that is economics.

Economics studies how individuals and societies decide to use limited resources to meet their needs: how goods and services are produced, exchanged and distributed, and how this shapes daily life — food, clothes, jobs, services. It studies decisions by consumers (what to buy), producers (what and how much to produce) and governments (policies balancing goals such as growth and stability, efficiency and fairness). So economics is about numbers and markets, but also about well-being, equity and justice.

Limited resources, three kinds of decider, and the government's two balancing acts (our drawing of the book's ideas; the Brundtland attribution is ours †).

India's economic story, as the book tells it: for centuries one of the world's leading economies and a centre of trade, industry and maritime activity; colonial rule disrupted this, bringing widespread poverty, recurring famines and the decline of traditional industries; after Independence India set about rebuilding; in recent decades there has been significant progress in infrastructure, education and technology, reduction in poverty and rising life expectancy; challenges remain in raising incomes and spreading the gains of growth to all. Economic development is therefore a central national goal, and the book asks for growth that is sustainable — meeting present needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Coming up: foundations of the Indian economy, markets and prices, financial management and entrepreneurship, growth and GDP, international trade and the Union Budget.

Reading the Economics page (page 10)Text only — no figure, table or numbers. The point: the book gives the shape of India's economic history in words; for figures, use the senior books (keec101, keec102) and the latest official data, always with a year.

Positions side by side: India's economy and colonial rule

Economic nationalists — Dadabhai Naoroji (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1901) and R.C. Dutt (The Economic History of India, 1902–04) — argued that a ‘drain’ of wealth to Britain, high land revenue and the ruin of handicrafts impoverished India. NCERT's account (here and in keec101) follows this broad line.
Long-run estimates: the economic historian Angus Maddison estimated India's share of world output at roughly a quarter around 1700 and about 4% by 1950. These are reconstructions with wide margins — quote them as ‘Maddison's estimates’ (figures to verify).
Some economic historians (e.g. Tirthankar Roy) accept the stagnation of per-capita income under colonial rule but give more weight to factors such as climate, geography and low farm productivity, and point to some gains, such as railways, alongside the losses.
Present-day progress is stated by the book; for numbers on poverty or life expectancy, quote an official source and its year — check the latest.

Read carefully — economics

The book's description of sustainable development follows the Brundtland Commission's report Our Common Future (1987) — the book does not name it; UPSC questions often do.
The three deciders are consumers, producers and governments; the two balances are growth ↔ stability and efficiency ↔ fairness.
Economics is not ‘only about money’: the book adds well-being, equity and justice.

8. Why study Social Science — and where the next two years go

In simple wordsA good driver does not only know the controls; she reads the road, the weather and other drivers. Social Science is learning to read the ‘road’ of society — so that as a voter, worker and neighbour you make better choices.

The book's answer: your house, water, roads, school, markets and even digital spaces are systems created and managed by society; Social Science shows how they developed, how they work and how they affect different groups. It explains why people in one country speak different languages and follow different customs — as outcomes of geographical, historical, cultural and economic factors — which builds respect and cooperation; and, the book adds, it shows how Indian culture binds this diversity through an underlying unity. In a democracy, knowing how governments work prepares you for responsible civic life. It sharpens thinking on shared problems — environment, public health, employment, urban growth — by asking about causes, effects and solutions. Above all, it connects past, present and future.

Its future: new technologies, growing cities, environmental concerns, migration and global links are reshaping life; Social Science will help with climate change, sustainable development, social harmony and the fair use of resources, guide the responsible use of technology, and help communities adapt. The book ends by describing the two-year course: Grade 9 offers a broad, balanced introduction to the four disciplines; the subject is ‘not about memorising dates, maps or definitions’ but about understanding people, places, society, culture and power — learning from the past, analysing the present, imagining a better future.

What the book says each discipline will cover in Grades 9–10, with this book's chapters (our layout).

Reading pages 10–12Text only — headings ‘Why should we study Social Science?’, ‘The future of Social Science’ and ‘Secondary-stage Social Science: your two-year learning journey (Grades 9–10)’. The point: the subject is a habit of mind — observe, ask, weigh evidence, connect — for informed, thoughtful citizens.

Positions side by side: unity and diversity

The book: differences in language, custom and occupation come from geography, history, culture and economy, and Indian culture binds them through an underlying unity, giving a shared identity.
Scholars who stress diversity describe India's unity as built over time through shared institutions, exchange and the Constitution, and insist that the distinct identities of regions and communities be respected within it (lesy106 sets out these debates).
Both views value respect and cooperation; an answer can present both without choosing.

In-text questions and activities — answer outlines

The chapter has no end-of-chapter exercise. It has seven ‘look beyond’ questions, a Let's Analyse activity and a Let's Explore activity; outlines for all of them are below, followed by five practice questions of our own (†) for revision.

p. 2: Why do some people live in crowded cities while others live in scattered villages?

Geography: flat land, water, fertile soil and transport routes draw dense settlement; hills, deserts and forests keep it scattered. Economics: cities offer jobs in industry and services; farming needs land around each house. History: old capitals, ports and trade centres grew into cities. Policy: roads, railways and industrial zones attract people. Use one example of each.

p. 2: Why do different communities speak different languages and follow different traditions?

Long settlement in separate regions, separated by mountains, rivers or distance; migrations and contact over centuries; different environments shaping food, dress and festivals; political histories of kingdoms and their courts. Languages and customs are outcomes of geography, history, culture and economy (the book's words on p. 11).

p. 2: Why do some regions depend on farming, while others focus on industry or trade?

Natural endowments (soil, water, climate for farming; minerals and energy for industry; coasts and crossroads for trade); capital, skills and infrastructure; history (old trading ports, colonial-era industries); government policy (industrial corridors, irrigation projects).

p. 2: How do governments make decisions that affect millions of people?

Through institutions set by the Constitution: elected legislatures make laws and budgets; the executive frames and carries out policy with the civil service; courts check legality; local bodies such as panchayats plan locally. Inputs come from elections, expert advice, data, public consultation and pressure groups (detail in iest106–107).

p. 2: Why are certain regions more prone to floods?

Physical: heavy, concentrated rain; low, flat land and deltas; rivers carrying heavy silt that raises their beds; cyclone-exposed coasts. Human: deforestation, building on floodplains, blocked drains, embankment breaches. A geography question with economic, political (relief) and social (displacement) sides.

p. 2: Why does agriculture flourish in some regions but not in others?

Fertile soil, reliable rain or irrigation, suitable temperature and flat land; plus credit, markets, roads, technology and secure land rights. Where these are missing — dry, steep, saline or remote land — farming is weaker.

p. 2: How does climate change influence our lives?

Hotter summers and heatwaves, erratic monsoons, floods and droughts → crop losses, food prices, water scarcity, health risks, migration; coasts face sea-level rise. Every discipline has a part: geography (where), economics (costs), political science (policy), history and culture (how people adapted before).

Let's Analyse (p. 2): Identify a change in your locality over the past five years; discuss what it was earlier, what changed, what caused it, and how it affected people; write a short report.

Example †: a new flyover. Earlier: a crowded level crossing with long waits. Change: a flyover opened; traffic flows faster. Cause: rising traffic, a government road project, funding. Effect: shorter travel for commuters; shops at the old crossing lost customers; noise for nearby houses. Present with a before–after sketch (not a map), two interviews and a conclusion naming who gained and who lost.

Let's Explore (p. 5): Map your own village or city with NCERT's School Bhuvan portal.

Open the portal, search your place name or zoom in on the satellite image; mark your school, home, market, water bodies and main roads with the drawing tools; save. Then note what the image shows (fields, built-up area, river) and what has changed if older imagery is available. Keep it in your notebook as your own map work.

Practice questions (ours †) — the book has none; these check the chapter's core.

Practice 1: Define Social Science. How is it different from the natural sciences?

The systematic study of human society — what happened, where, and why and how. Natural sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) study the natural world; Social Science studies society, institutions, cultures and human interactions, mainly through observation, evidence and comparison rather than controlled experiment.

Practice 2: Using the example of a drought, explain why Social Science is a group of disciplines.

One drought touches crops (environment — Geography), incomes (Economics), relief (Political Science), migration (Sociology) and coping traditions (culture). No single discipline can explain it; together they give a holistic picture. Grades 9–10 use four core disciplines.

Practice 3: Name the four kinds of historical source shown in the chapter, with one example of each from its figures.

Literary — the Sāmaveda manuscript or the Tirukkuṟaḷ palm leaf; archaeological — the terracotta figurine or the 12th-century Viṣṇu sculpture; epigraphic — the Gupta-period Brahmi inscription or Krishnadeva Raya's Kannada inscription at Hampi; numismatic — Samudragupta's coin or Jahangir's zodiac coin.

Practice 4: What do ‘spatial’ and ‘temporal’ perspectives mean in Geography? Give one example of each.

Spatial: where something is and why the location matters (e.g. why ports lie on sheltered coasts). Temporal: how something changes over time (e.g. how a city spread over farmland in thirty years). Geography joins both.

Practice 5: How does the chapter link India's knowledge traditions to modern Social Science? Present the book's view and one note of caution.

Book: early Indian thinkers valued questioning, reasoning and dialogue; the Pañchamahābhūtas see nature as one system; vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam sees societies as interdependent; the Arthaśāstra (attributed to Kauṭilya) analysed administration, tax and the ruler's duty; modern Social Science continues this with new tools. Caution: dates and authorship of ancient texts are debated (e.g. the Arthaśāstra) and claims are tested against evidence — attribute positions and avoid a single precise date.

⤵ Answer frame for any ‘what is X and why study it’ question

Definein one line, in the book's terms

Questions it askswhat, where, why, how — with one everyday example

Methods and sourcesobservation, surveys, documents, inscriptions, coins, maps, GIS

Links to other disciplinesthe drought example: one event, many lenses

Why it matterscitizenship, shared problems, past–present–future; attribute any debated claim

What to remember

Numbers

Chapter size12 pages; 9 figures (1 screenshot + 8 source photographs); no end exercise

Systems behind daily life4: governance, economic production, social cooperation, natural environment

Core disciplines (Grades 9–10)4: Geography, History, Political Science, Economics; wider family: Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology

Drought example5 lenses: environment, economy, politics, society, culture

Pañchamahābhūtas5: Pṛthvī earth, Āpaḥ water, Agni fire, Vāyu air, Ākāśa space

Arthaśāstraattributed to Kauṭilya; NCERT ‘about 2,300 years ago’ ≈ 275 BCE †; many scholars: compiled c. 1st c. BCE – 3rd c. CE; found 1905, published by Shamasastry 1909 †

Kinds of historical source4 headings: literary, archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic — two figures each

Tirukkuṟaḷ †1,330 couplets = 133 chapters × 10; books of 38 + 70 + 25 chapters

Mature Harappan phase †c. 2600–1900 BCE (lehs101) — the civilisation of Fig. 1.4

Samudragupta †r. c. 335–375 CE — his gold coin, Fig. 1.8 (‘4th century CE’)

Krishnadeva Raya †r. 1509–1529 — Kannada inscription at Hampi, Fig. 1.7

Jahangir †r. 1605–1627 — zodiac coin, Fig. 1.9

Carbon-14 †half-life ≈ 5,730 years; dates organic remains up to ≈ 50,000 years; Libby 1949

Bhuvan †ISRO–NRSC geoportal, launched 2009 (School Bhuvan: Fig. 1.1)

Panchayati Raj †73rd Amendment 1992, in force 24 April 1993; three tiers

Sustainable development †Brundtland report, Our Common Future, 1987

One-liners

Social Science asks what and where — and above all why and how.
A day's life rests on governance, production, cooperation and environment.
Society does not run by chance: history, geography, institutions, resources and choices shape it.
One drought, five lenses — so Social Science is a family of disciplines.
Geography joins the spatial (where) with the temporal (when).
History reads texts, remains, inscriptions and coins, and tests them with science.
Political Science studies power in institutions and in everyday relationships.
Economics is choosing with limited resources — fairly and sustainably.
The book roots inquiry in Indian traditions; dates of ancient texts are debated, so attribute.

Traps to avoid

Ākāśa (space) is the fifth element; wood and metal are Chinese wuxing.
Vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam: Mahā Upaniṣad (and Hitopadeśa), not the Arthaśāstra.
Arthaśāstra is ‘attributed to’ Kauṭilya; ‘2,300 years ago’ is NCERT's figure, not a consensus.
Epigraphy = inscriptions; numismatics = coins; palaeography = scripts.
Carbon-14 dates once-living material only, not stone or metal.
Bhuvan is ISRO's geoportal, not a satellite.
Core four ≠ Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology.
Krishnadeva Raya's Hampi inscription is in Kannada; his own poem is in Telugu.
Sindhu-Sarasvatī = Harappan = Indus Valley civilisation — one culture, three names.

How to strategise

Prelims — what UPSC asks

From this chapter: the vocabulary of sources — epigraphy, numismatics, palaeography, carbon-14 (UPSC 1993) — and Bhuvan (UPSC 2010). Learn the four source types with an example each, and the limits of carbon-14.
Questions on the Arthaśāstra's contents (1990, 2022), the Vedas and Gupta coins are set from the senior books — study lehs102 and kefa104 for those. Here, learn only ‘attributed to Kauṭilya’ and the dating debate.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

GS1 (Indian heritage and culture): use the four kinds of source and the cross-checking habit as the frame for any question on how we know the past. Essay: the drought example and ‘one event, many lenses’ make a strong opening for interdisciplinary themes; vasudhaiva kuṭumbakam and the Pañchamahābhūtas suit essays on interdependence and environment — attribute their sources and avoid precise dates for ancient texts.
On traditions vs evidence-based history, colonial economic history, and unity and diversity, set out the positions side by side with their authors; give laws and dates as bare facts.

Self-check

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

1. According to the book, which four systems does even a simple daily activity rely on?

2. Which of the following is NOT one of the Pañchamahābhūtas?

3. A stone pillar with words carved on it is studied mainly as a:

4. Carbon-14 dating can directly date which of these finds?

5. In the Grades 9–10 course, the four core disciplines of Social Science are:

6. ‘Bhuvan’, used in the chapter's Let's Explore box, is:

7. Geography's ‘temporal perspective’ means looking at:

UPSC questions from this chapter

Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.

Prelims

2 questions · newest first

2010Prelims GSIn the context of space technology, what is “Bhuvan”, recently in the news ?Attempt →1993Prelims GSWhich one of the following is used for dating archaeological specimens in wood, bones and shells?Attempt →

Mains

0 questions

2 Prelims and 0 Mains UPSC questions are linked to this chapter. More from Understanding Society: India and Beyond – I.