UPSC Prelims 2014 · Question 1 of 100
UPSC Prelims 2014 question on Mahattara and Pattakila
- ExamUPSC CSE
- Year2014
- PaperGeneral Studies Paper I
- SubjectArt and Culture
- TopicMiscellaneous Art and Culture
- DifficultyHard
- TypeDirect
In Medieval India, the designations 'Mahattara' and 'Pattakila' were used for
Show answer
Answer: B. village officers
Verdict
The answer is village officers. In medieval Indian records, Mahattara and Pattakila are both designations of village-level functionaries connected with local administration and revenue collection.
Analysis
Mahattara denotes the senior man or elder of the village community, the person who spoke for the village in dealings with the state. Pattakila is the Sanskritised form that survives today as Patel or Patil, still the word for a village headman in western India. Military officers is wrong because titles of that class in the period were drawn from a different vocabulary. Specialists in Vedic rituals is wrong because ritual designations are priestly rather than administrative. Chiefs of craft guilds is wrong because guild heads carry the shreshthi or jyeshthaka family of titles.
Source
Administrative System in India: Vedic Age to 1947 by U. B. Singh, page 47.
How to crack it
This is an unconventional question, so play etymology rather than recall. Pattakila is one sound shift away from Patel or Patil, a living surname that still means village headman across Gujarat and Maharashtra. When a medieval designation looks like a modern Indian surname, the modern meaning of that surname is usually the safest guess. That single link decides the question, and if it does not occur to you the honest call is to leave the question blank.