BHIE 144 Guess Paper at a Glance
| 15 | questions with complete model answers |
|---|---|
| 18 | pages in the PDF file |
| 8 | syllabus blocks covered |
| 6 | term-end papers analysed (June 2023 to December 2025) |
| 100 | marks and 3 hours in the actual exam |
| 5 of 8 | questions to be attempted, minimum two per section |
| 400 | words per 20-mark answer and 200 for short notes |
| 2 | target sessions covered, June 2026 and December 2026 |
BHIE 144 Solved Guess Paper 2026 is an 18-page examination file prepared for students of Traditions of History Writing in India, the history elective offered under BAG and BAHIH. It carries 15 questions with complete written answers, mapped across all eight blocks of the syllabus, and shaped to the 400-word length the term-end paper actually asks for.
This is not a list of probable topics. Every question inside the file already has its answer written out, with the definition on top, the scholar named, the points numbered and a short evaluative closing line. That is the structure IGNOU evaluators reward on this paper, and it is the structure most students lose marks by ignoring.
Five complete questions and answers are reproduced below so you can judge the writing before you decide. The remaining ten questions, along with the exam strategy pages and the session-by-session frequency analysis, come in the full PDF.
What the BHIE 144 Solved Guess Paper 2026 Contains
The file holds 15 questions with full model answers across 18 pages, covering all eight blocks of BHIE 144 and both sections of the term-end paper.
Thirteen of the fifteen are 20-mark essay questions on themes such as historical consciousness in early India, inscriptions and prashastis, the Sangam corpus, bhakti hagiographies, Ziauddin Barani, Abul Fazl and Subaltern historiography. The remaining two are short-note sets, each offering four options in the 10 plus 10 pattern.
Answers are written from the IGNOU textbook rather than paraphrased from the internet, so the names, dates and technical terms match what your study material uses. Where a scholar is central to a theme, that scholar is named inside the answer, for example Romila Thapar on embedded and externalised history, Peter Hardy on Barani and David Lorenzen on hagiographic miracle stories.
Students who want a wider view of what we publish across programmes can browse our full IGNOU Solved Guess Paper library, though the BHIE 144 file described here is written specifically for this course code and is not a reused template.
Sample Questions and Answers from the BHIE 144 Guess Paper
Five of the fifteen questions are reproduced in full below, exactly as they appear in the PDF, with the model answers unedited.
These five span both sections and both formats, so you can see how a 20-mark essay and a 10-mark short note are handled differently. Nothing has been shortened for the web page.
Q. How did social, political and economic contexts shape the tradition of history writing in early India? Discuss the historical consciousness of early Indians.
Meaning of Historical Consciousness
“Historical tradition refers to those aspects of the past, recorded orally or in texts, which are consciously transmitted from generation to generation carrying the sanctity of antiquity and a believed historicity.”
The Colonial Charge and Its Rebuttal
- Orientalist claim: British scholars declared Indian civilisation a-historical because they found no disciplinary history-writing, the lone exception being Kalhana's Rajatarangini, the 12th-century history of Kashmir.
- James Mill: His 'The History of British India' (1818-1823) divided the past into Hindu, Muslim and British periods and dismissed Hindu civilisation as backward and stagnant.
- Thapar's reply: No society is a-historical; every society has a concept of the past, but emphasises certain events and records them in its own conditioned way.
Elements of a Historical Tradition
Thapar identifies three constituents:
- Consciousness: a historical consciousness of past events considered significant by the society.
- Chronology: events arranged in a chronological fashion reflecting elements of causality.
- Record: events recorded in a way that meets the requirements of the society.
The Three Indian Traditions
Indian historical tradition rests on three streams:
- Puranic tradition: the itihasa-purana stream rooted in genealogies and origin myths.
- Sramanic tradition: the Buddhist and Jaina records preserved chiefly in monasteries.
- Bardic tradition: the bards' genealogies of high-status families, going back to early epic compositions.
Embedded and Externalised Forms
Historical consciousness moved from embedded to externalised forms.
- Embedded: origin myths, compositions in praise of heroes, and genealogies of ancient descent groups buried within ritual texts.
- Externalised: autonomous historical genres such as caritas (biographies), prashastis and vamsavalis (chronicles), and inscriptions.
Social, Political and Economic Context
Traditions were shaped by the needs of their context.
- Clan to kingdom: society moved from clan organisation to kingdoms, and genealogies tracked the fission and fusion of lineages.
- Legitimation: priests legitimised the chief's status through hero-lauds, while the past was used to legitimise the changing present and validate power.
- Cyclic time: history in early India was tied to a cyclic concept of time, unlike the linear time of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Conclusion: Early India possessed a distinctive historical consciousness, different from the European model, expressed through embedded forms in ritual texts that gradually matured into externalised genres recording a believed past.
Q. How are inscriptions and prashastis important sources for reconstructing the early history of India? Discuss their types and significance.
Meaning of Inscriptions
“Any writing onto a solid surface, seals, copper plates, temple walls, pillars, rock surfaces, bricks, is called an inscription: a textual record that is simultaneously an archaeological artefact.”
Value as a Historical Source
- Precedence: R. C. Majumdar held that as historical evidence inscriptions take precedence over the mass of literature, whose age is uncertain.
- No interpolation: once etched an inscription is not tampered with, unlike manuscripts copied on perishable materials and altered over time.
- Disciplines: their study is epigraphy and the study of their script is palaeography, which also helps in approximate dating.
Types of Inscriptions
- Royal orders: raja-shasanas/dharma-shasanas convey the views and announcements of those in power, their spread indicating the king's domain.
- Prashastis: vijaya-shasanas are eulogies that applaud patrons, refer back to dynastic origins and list conquests.
- Votive inscriptions: dana-shasanas record gifts of householders, monks and nuns to a sangha, monastery or stupa.
- Copper-plate charters: tamra-shasanas record royal land-grants and are legal catalogues of rights and obligations on land.
Ashokan Edicts and Prashastis
- Ashokan edicts: the Major Rock Edicts and Pillar Edicts are statements of a chakkavatti on the code of dhamma, partly autobiographical and rich in historical consciousness.
- Prayaga Prashasti: without the Allahabad Pillar Inscription the mighty Gupta monarch Samudragupta would have remained unknown.
- Other prashastis: the Aihole inscription of Pulakeshin II and the Junagadh inscription of Rudradaman record genealogies, conquests and public works.
Conclusion: As contemporary, untampered records, inscriptions and prashastis supply precise chronology, dynastic history and economic detail, and are themselves a literal embodiment of early Indian historical consciousness.
Q. Explain the historical consciousness and tradition reflected in the Sangam literature of South India.
Meaning of Sangam Literature
“Sangam literature refers to a corpus of early Tamil literary works which were passed down as oral tradition and dated to the early centuries of the Common Era; Sangam means an academy.”
The Three Sangams
- First Sangam: held at Ten Madurai, with 4449 poets, lasting 4440 years, later engulfed by the sea.
- Second Sangam: held at Kapatapuram, with 3700 poets, lasting 3700 years, also lost to the sea.
- Third Sangam: lasted 1830 years under 49 Pandya kings, and its works alone survive.
The Surviving Corpus
- Tolkappiyam: the ancient Tamil grammatical work.
- Ettu tokai: the Eight Anthologies, a collection of eight literary works.
- Pattu pattu: the ten long poems.
Akam, Puram and Tinai
- Akam: deals with the inner life, love and marriage, through five landscapes (Kurinji, Mullai, Marutam, Neytal and Palai).
- Puram: deals with the outer life of warfare, morality and values, naming kings, chieftains and battlefields.
Historical Consciousness
- Selective memory: only the events the society wished to remember percolate into the narratives for the contemporary audience.
- Description of the past: the genealogy, lineage and mythical ancestry of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas are recorded, for example Patitrupathu details Chera history.
- Historical narratives: bards and poets record developments and events of their own and earlier times, woven directly into Puram and indirectly into Akam songs.
Conclusion: Though framed as poems of love and war, the Sangam corpus preserves genealogies, conquests and collective memory, demonstrating a distinct historical consciousness in early South India.
Q. How do Bakhars and Buranjis help in understanding the past? Explain with reference to the history of Maharashtra and Assam.
Meaning of Bakhar and Buranji
“Bakhars are prose historical narratives in Marathi, while buranjis are a genre of historical chronicles of the Ahom dynasty in Assam, the word buranji being today a synonym for itihas.”
The Bakhar Tradition
The bakhar is the prose historical genre of Maharashtra.
- Form and number: prose narratives written from the sixteenth century, with the bulk composed from the late seventeenth to early nineteenth century, numbering about two hundred.
- Content: composed as biographies of great rulers, genealogies of prominent families or accounts of momentous battles.
- Etymology: some believe bakhar to be a metathesis of the Arabic word khabar ('information'), developing from the akhbars or Perso-Arabic intelligence newsletters.
- Significance: they offer a creative and evocative Maratha past, valued more for literary merit and popular memory than strict factual accuracy.
The Buranji Tradition
The buranji is the chronicle tradition of the Ahoms of Assam.
- Identity: closely identified with Ahom rule, which lasted six hundred years from 1228 to 1826, and the basis of Assam's pre-colonial history.
- Language: initially written in the Tai-Ahom language and later mostly in Assamese after the Ahoms converted to Hinduism.
- Meaning: the word buranji comes from the Thai word boran ('ancient'), or is explained as 'a store of knowledge that teaches the ignorant'.
- Examples: important buranjis include the Deodhai, Kamrupor, Padshah (Badshah), Tripura and Tungkhungia Buranjis.
Conclusion: As institutionalised regional traditions, the bakhars of Maharashtra and the buranjis of Assam preserve genealogies, battles and political memory, and the buranji in particular is acknowledged as a reliable source for reconstructing the history of Assam.
Q. Write a short note on Kalhana's Rajatarangini.
“the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered, to which the title of History can with any propriety be applied.”
- Author and date: an epic poem (mahakavya) composed in Sanskrit in 1148-50 CE by the Kashmiri Pandit Kalhana, son of the minister Champaka.
- Form: literally the 'River of Kings', it runs into nearly 8000 verses unequally distributed among eight books.
- Method: self-reflexive, it states its purpose and method and was based on the consultation of at least eleven earlier texts.
- Content: it gives a continuous chronology of the Gonandiya, Karkota, Utpala and Lohara dynasties of Kashmir.
If those five read the way you want your own answer sheet to read, the other ten are written to the same standard. The short-note sample above shows the compressed four-point format used for the 10-mark options, which is deliberately tighter than the essay answers.
Page by Page Index of the BHIE 144 Guess Paper PDF
The BHIE 144 file runs to 18 pages: one cover page, fifteen pages of solved questions and two closing pages of exam strategy and frequency analysis.
Buyers often ask what they are actually receiving before paying, so the entire contents map is published below. There is no hidden filler and no padded appendix.
| Page | Question | Topic and key terms covered |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cover | Contents map, target sessions, block coverage summary |
| 2 to 3 | Q1 | Historical consciousness in early India, Thapar's three constituents, embedded versus externalised forms |
| 3 | Q2 | Epics and itihasa-purana tradition, dana-stuti hymns, gathas, narasamsis, vamsanucarita |
| 4 | Q3 | Buddhist and Jaina traditions, Paumacariyam of Vimalasuri, Tipitaka, Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa |
| 5 | Q4 | Inscriptions and prashastis, raja-shasana, tamra-shasana, Prayaga Prashasti, Aihole and Junagadh |
| 6 | Q5 | Sangam literary tradition, Tolkappiyam, Ettu tokai, Pattu pattu, akam, puram and tinai |
| 7 | Q6 | Genealogies and family histories, Charans and Bhats, vahivanca barots, kulgranthas, teerth registers |
| 8 | Q7 | Short-note set one: Rajatarangini, charita literature, Amuktamalyada, Rayavachakamu |
| 9 | Q8 | Bhakti hagiographies, Nabhadas and the Bhaktamal, varta literature, janam-sakhis, Lorenzen and Callewaert |
| 10 | Q9 | Bakhar and Buranji, khabar etymology, Deodhai and Tungkhungia Buranjis, Ahom rule 1228 to 1826 |
| 11 | Q10 | Ziauddin Barani, Tarikh-i Firuzshahi, Fatawa-i Jahandari, Peter Hardy's reading of his bias |
| 12 | Q11 | Muhammad Qasim Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrahimi, Ibrahim Adil Shah II, Alexander Dow and John Briggs |
| 13 | Q12 | Abul Fazl, Akbarnama and Ain-i Akbari, sulh-i kul, wahdat-ul wujud and the Ishraqi influence |
| 14 | Q13 | Colonial and nationalist history writing, Orientalist, Evangelical and Anglicist trends, Bhandarkar and Jayaswal |
| 15 | Q14 | Marxist and Subaltern historiography, modes of production, Ranajit Guha, autonomous subaltern domain |
| 16 | Q15 | Short-note set two: Megasthenes, Fa Hsien and Hsuan Tsang, Bernier and Manucci, Ibn Battuta |
| 17 to 18 | Strategy | Exam rules, word targets, what not to over-prepare and the six-session frequency table |
How the BHIE 144 Guess Paper Was Built from Past Papers
Six term-end papers from June 2023 to December 2025 were read question by question, and every topic was logged against the session in which it appeared.
The method is deliberately dull, because dull is what works. Each paper was broken into its eight questions, the short-note options were logged separately from the essay questions, and the resulting grid showed which themes return almost every session and which have appeared only once in three years.
Themes that surfaced four or more times were marked HIGH and written out in full. Themes appearing twice or three times were marked MEDIUM and still answered, because they are the ones that fill your fifth attempt. Single-appearance themes such as Tazkirat or the Heliodorus inscription were deliberately left out, and the strategy pages say so plainly.
One gap in the grid mattered more than any repetition. Historical consciousness in early India had been quiet through 2023 and 2024 before returning in December 2025, which is exactly the pattern that precedes a repeat. It is placed first in the file for that reason.
Anyone who wants to check the raw material can read the papers themselves on the university site, for instance the official June 2024 BHIE 144 term-end paper hosted by IGNOU. Our own archive of the IGNOU Previous Year Question Paper collection is arranged by course code if you prefer to work through them in one place.
BHIE 144 Block and Unit Coverage of Traditions of History Writing in India
All eight blocks of BHIE 144 are represented in the guess paper, with Block 2 carrying the heaviest weight at five questions.
The table below maps the official IGNOU block and unit structure of Traditions of History Writing in India against the questions in the file, so you can see instantly whether a block you have skipped is one you can afford to skip.
| Block | Block title | Units inside the block | Questions in the file |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Past and History | What is History? | Q1, which grounds the whole paper in the definition of a historical tradition |
| 2 | History Writing in Early India | Myths, Dana-Stuti, Gatha, Akhyana and the Transition to Epic and Itihasa-Purana Tradition; Buddhist and Jain Traditions; Kathas and Charitas; Inscriptions and Prashastis; Kalhana | Q2, Q3, Q4 and the Rajatarangini and charita options in Q7 |
| 3 | History Writing in South India | Sangam Literary Tradition; Amuktamalyada and Rayavachakamu | Q5 and the Amuktamalyada and Rayavachakamu options in Q7 |
| 4 | Regional Traditions of History Writing | Hagiographies and Bhakti Traditions; Genealogies and Family Histories; Bakhar and Buranji | Q6, Q8 and Q9 |
| 5 | Indo-Persian Traditions of History Writing | Ziauddin Barani; Muhammad Qasim Ferishta; Abul Fazl | Q10, Q11 and Q12 |
| 6 | India as Seen by the Others | Greek, Chinese, Arab and Persian Accounts; European Travelogues | Q15, covering all four short-note options in one page |
| 7 | History Writing in Colonial India | Colonial History Writing; Nationalists | Q13, which handles both the colonial trends and the nationalist reply |
| 8 | Post-Independence Historiography | Marxist and Subalterns; Emerging Themes in History Writing | Q14, with emerging themes noted as low priority in the strategy pages |
Topic Frequency Across Six BHIE 144 Question Papers
Genealogies and family histories appeared in all six sessions analysed, making it the single most repeated theme in BHIE 144.
This grid is reproduced from the closing pages of the file. A tick marks a session in which the theme appeared, either as a full 20-mark question or as one of the four short-note options.
| Theme | Jun 23 | Dec 23 | Jun 24 | Dec 24 | Jun 25 | Dec 25 | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genealogies and family histories | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Buddhist and Jaina traditions and the sangha | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Inscriptions and prashastis | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Sangam literary tradition | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Bhakti hagiographies | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Bakhar and Buranji | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | High |
| Marxist and Subaltern historiography | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | High |
| Greek, Chinese and Arab accounts | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | High |
| Nationalist historiography | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | High |
| Ziauddin Barani | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | High |
| Muhammad Qasim Firishta | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | High |
| Epics and itihasa-purana tradition | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | High |
| Abul Fazl | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | High |
| Colonial history writing | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | High |
| Historical consciousness in early India | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | High |
| Amuktamalyada and Rayavachakamu | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Medium |
| European travelogues of Bernier and Manucci | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Medium |
| Jaina tradition and the Paumacariyam | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Medium |
| Kalhana's Rajatarangini | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Medium |
| Ibn Battuta | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Medium |
| Charita and katha literature | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Medium |
| Women's and environmental history writing | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Low |
Read the low row carefully before you spend a night on it. Women's and environmental history writing has not appeared since June 2024, which is why it sits outside the fifteen answered questions and is flagged as backup reading only. If you would rather verify the pattern yourself, work through a BHIE 144 Question paper from each session and build your own grid.
BHIE 144 Exam Pattern and Marking Scheme You Must Match
BHIE 144 is a three-hour paper worth 100 marks in which you attempt any five of eight questions, with at least two taken from each section.
Each question carries 20 marks and the instruction printed on the paper asks for answers of about 400 words. Questions 4 and 8 are the short-note sets, where you choose any two of four options and write roughly 200 words on each for 10 marks apiece.
The arithmetic matters. Five answers in 180 minutes leaves about 33 minutes per question including reading and planning time, which is why an answer that opens with a definition and then runs down numbered points scores better than one that circles the topic for two pages.
A common and expensive mistake on this paper is attempting four questions from Section I because the early Indian material feels safer. The two-per-section rule is not advisory. The file is split evenly across both sections for precisely this reason, so that you walk in with genuine coverage on the Indo-Persian and colonial side too.
Who Should Buy This BHIE 144 Solved Guess Paper
This file suits BAG and BAHIH students sitting BHIE 144 in June 2026 or December 2026 who have limited time and need written answers rather than reading lists.
It is a strong fit if you have already skimmed the blocks but cannot recall which scholar goes with which theme, or if your notes are a mass of highlighted textbook lines that will not convert into a structured answer under time pressure. It is also useful for repeat candidates who know the syllabus but keep losing marks on presentation.
It is a weaker fit if you have not opened the study material at all. The answers are written to be understood, not merely copied, and they assume you recognise names such as Kalhana, Barani and Nabhadas even if you cannot yet write about them.
Students taking several history electives in the same session often pick up a BAG guess Paper for each course code so the whole term-end block is covered in one go rather than one paper at a time.
How to Use the BHIE 144 Guess Paper in Your Last Ten Days
Ten days is enough for BHIE 144 if you write answers by hand rather than only reading them.
Days one to three should go to Section I, taking the historical consciousness, itihasa-purana, Buddhist and Jaina and inscriptions answers. Read each once, then close the file and reproduce the skeleton from memory: definition, then the point headings, then the conclusion line.
Days four to six cover Sangam, genealogies and the first short-note set. Days seven and eight move to Section II with bhakti hagiographies, bakhar and buranji, and the Indo-Persian trio of Barani, Firishta and Abul Fazl.
Day nine takes colonial, nationalist, Marxist and Subaltern writing together, since they form one argument running from James Mill to Ranajit Guha and are easier to hold as a sequence than as four separate topics.
Day ten is for the terms alone. Write out itihasa-purana, prashasti, vamsanucarita, akam, puram, tinai, sulh-i kul and wahdat-ul wujud with one line each. Examiners on this paper reward exact vocabulary, and this is the cheapest mark on the board.
How to Get the Complete BHIE 144 Guess Paper with Answers
Send the course code BHIE 144 on WhatsApp to 9899436384 and the complete 18-page PDF is shared with you directly.
Five questions are already published above. The remaining ten answers, along with the exam strategy pages and the frequency grid, are in the full file. Tell us your session, June 2026 or December 2026, and whether you are enrolled under BAG or BAHIH, and we will confirm the current price and share the file once payment is complete.
Delivery is digital and usually takes a few minutes. If any answer is unclear once you have it, message the same number and Prateek will explain the point rather than sending you back to the textbook.
Get the Complete BHIE 144 Guess Paper on WhatsApp 9899436384
Frequently Asked Questions on the BHIE 144 Guess Paper
What exactly is included in the BHIE 144 Solved Guess Paper for 2026?
The file contains 15 questions with complete written answers across 18 pages. Thirteen are 20-mark essay answers and two are short-note sets offering four options each. It also carries two closing pages holding the exam rules, word targets and a session-by-session frequency grid built from six past papers. Five of the fifteen answers are published on this page as samples.
How many questions from the BHIE 144 guess paper are shown for no cost on this page?
Five complete questions with their full model answers appear above, reproduced exactly as they sit in the PDF. That covers four 20-mark essay answers and one 10-mark short note, drawn from both Section I and Section II. The other ten answers arrive with the full file. Nothing on this page has been shortened or rewritten for the web.
Does BHIE 144 have a practical file or project component?
No. Traditions of History Writing in India is a fully theoretical course with no practical file, laboratory record or project submission attached to it. Your assessment consists of the tutor marked assignment and the three-hour term-end examination worth 100 marks. The index published on this page is therefore the index of the guess paper PDF itself.
Which sessions does this BHIE 144 guess paper target?
It is written for the June 2026 and December 2026 term-end examinations. The frequency analysis behind it covers six sessions running from June 2023 through December 2025, with the December 2025 paper read in full. Because the eight syllabus blocks have not changed across any of these sessions, the same file serves both of the 2026 sittings without alteration.
Is the BHIE 144 guess paper available in Hindi medium as well?
The answers described on this page are written in English. IGNOU offers the course in both English and Hindi, and the term-end paper is printed bilingually. If you write your examination in Hindi, message the course code on WhatsApp before ordering and we will confirm what is currently available in Hindi medium for this particular code.
Can BHIE 144 guess paper answers be copied straight into the answer booklet?
They are written to be understood and reproduced in your own hand, not memorised word for word. The structure matters most: open with the definition, name the scholar, run numbered points, close with an evaluative line. Carry that skeleton into the hall along with the exact terms and dates, and you can write a full answer even on a question phrased differently.
How is this different from a BHIE 144 previous year question paper?
A past paper tells you what was asked and leaves you to write the answer. This file works the other way round. It reads six past papers, identifies which themes keep returning, and then supplies the finished answer for each one. Both are worth having, and most students use the past papers to time themselves after studying the answers.
How quickly is the BHIE 144 file delivered after ordering?
Delivery is digital and normally completed within a few minutes of payment confirmation during working hours. The PDF is sent on WhatsApp to the same number you message from, and it opens on any phone without special software. If you place your order late at night, expect the file to reach you the following morning rather than immediately.
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