How do social relationships operate in present-day societies? Are there any similarities or differences with patterns of the past?

The city, bursting like the ocean, packed with hundreds of mansions, displayed with its gateways, arches, and turrets like massing clouds the splendour of Great Indra’s city.

Do you think Lal’s finds match the description of Hastinapura in the epic?

Explain why patriliny may have been particularly important among elite families.

This is what a famous historian of Indian literature, Maurice Winternitz, wrote about the Mahabharata:

“Just because the Mahabharata represents more of an entire literature . and contains so much and so many kinds of things, it gives us an insight into the most profound depths of the soul of the Indian folk.” Discuss.