With Statement to the history of India, the terms “kulyavapa” and “dronavapa” denote

The correct answer is A. Kulyavapa and dronavapa were units of land measurement in ancient and early medieval India, mostly found in land grant records and inscriptions. A dronavapa was the area sown with one drona of seed, and a kulyavapa was a larger unit, usually taken as eight dronavapas. These terms appear in epigraphs where grants of land are described in precise measures.

Why the others fail:

• B is wrong. Coins of differing value were known by names such as dinara, rupaka or kakini, not by these terms.
• C is wrong. These units measured agricultural area, not urban land, and they say nothing about its constitution or tenure.
• D is wrong. Religious rituals had their own vocabulary. Grants to temples and brahmins were often measured in these units, which is why the terms are confused with religion.

Concept: agrarian structure and land administration in early India, and land grants as a source of political and social power. For Mains, this links to the historiographical debate on agrarian expansion and the rise of intermediary landed classes in early medieval India.

Trap: candidates who know that land grants were common may guess that these terms relate to grants or rituals. Recall the unit-of-measure meaning instead.