Question

What are the three categories of Literary Sources of History?
A. Religious Literature
B. Secular literature
C. Foreign Literature
D. All of the above

Answer 1

Hint: History primarily can be traced by two kinds of sources namely, archaeological sources and literary sources. Literary sources are the information which is in written form and their sources are journals, letters, books, reports, documents etc.

Complete answer: History primarily can be traced by two kinds of sources namely, archaeological sources and literary sources. As far as literary sources are concerned, historians do look at various texts, which comprises Religious literature, Secular literature and Foreign Accounts etc.
Religious literature does play an important role in bringing out the socio-political history of any society. For instance, if we take the example of the Indian subcontinent, where religion played a pivotal role, we find Vedas and Puranas being religiously followed in every household.
By Secular literature, we generally mean literature having no religious content. In other words, a text consisted of worldly things. These were the sources which enlightened us about administration, rules and regulations etc of an empire. In this category, we have Kalhana’s ‘Rajatarangini’, ‘Arthashastra’ of Kautilya, Banbhatta’s ‘Harshacharita’, Zia-ud-din Barani’s ‘Tarikh-i-Firozshahi’, ‘Akbarnama’ of Abul Fazl etc.
Foreign Accounts, in tracing any country’s history these sources carry crucial significance. These are basically accounts written by travellers of other countries during their travel in the concerned city or country. Since ancient times India has been an attractive place for foreign travellers, many used to come here for studying in Nalanda and Takshashila universities, also, many travelled to India to witness its diversity. Chinese traveller Hiuen-Tsang’s (7th century) and Arab traveller Al-buruni’s (11th century) accounts provide us with a huge chunk of knowledge of those times.
Thus, Option D. All of the above is the correct answer.

Note: In the modern era of technologies, history can also be known by different chemical techniques such as carbon dating, Uranium dating and rock dating etc. It is important to note that above-mentioned sources are still being used by historians.