IBPS PO 2024 · Question 215 of 260

Directions (109-110): Read the following passage and answer the given questions. Ayurveda and Unani medicine, though frequently conflated by lay observers as interchangeable strands of India's indigenous healing heritage, rest upon epistemological foundations that diverge substantially. Ayurveda, codified in Sanskrit treatises composed over two millennia ago, posits that health is contingent upon the equilibrium of three humoral forces—vata, pitta, and kapha—whose imbalance precipitates disease; therapeutic intervention thus seeks to restore this triadic harmony through diet, herbal formulation, and regimented lifestyle. Unani medicine, by contrast, traces its lineage to Greco-Arabic scholarship transmitted through Persian and Arab physicians before being assimilated into the subcontinent during the medieval period, and it attributes physiological function to four humours—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—whose proportions determine an individual's temperament. While both systems share a conviction that illness arises from internal disequilibrium rather than external pathogens alone, their diagnostic vocabularies and pharmacological repertoires remain distinct: Ayurvedic practitioners emphasize pulse diagnosis calibrated to the three doshas, whereas Unani hakims historically relied on urine and pulse examination framed within the Galenic humoral tradition. This divergence, often obscured by their shared emphasis on natural remedies, underscores that syncretism in popular perception belies genuine doctrinal distinctness. What can be inferred about the relationship between 'popular perception' and 'doctrinal distinctness' in the passage? Directions (111-112): Rearrange the following five sentences (A), (B), (C), (D) and (E) in the proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph and then answer the question given below.

Reading comprehension

1. APopular perception tends to blur the genuine doctrinal differences between the two systems, even though those differences are substantial.Correct
2. BPopular perception accurately reflects the doctrinal distinctness of both systems at all times.
3. CDoctrinal distinctness has been entirely eliminated by widespread popular perception over time.
4. DPopular perception and doctrinal distinctness are unrelated concepts never discussed together in the passage.
5. EDoctrinal distinctness is a myth invented by modern scholars to contradict popular perception.