NCERT solutions for English First Flight Class 10 chapter 8 - The Sermon at Benares [Latest edition]

Use a dictionary or ask for your teacher’s help as you discuss the following questions in groups.

What is a sermon? Is it different from a lecture or a talk? Can this word also be used in a negative way or as a joke (as in “my mother’s sermon about getting my work done on time...”)?

Use a dictionary or ask for your teacher’s help as you discuss the following questions in groups.

Find out the meanings of the words and phrases given in the box.

Use a dictionary or ask for your teacher’s help as you discuss the following questions in groups.

Have you heard of the Sermon on the Mount? Who delivered it? Who do you think delivered a sermon at Benares?

When her son dies, Kisa Gotami goes from house to house. What does she ask for? Does she get it? Why not?

Kisa Gotami again goes from house to house after she speaks with the Buddha. What does she ask for, the second time around? Does she get it? Why not?

What does Kisa Gotami understand the second time that she failed to understand the first time? Was this what the Buddha wanted her to understand?

Why do you think Kisa Gotami understood this only the second time? In what way did the Buddha change her understanding?

This text is written in an old-fashioned style, for it reports an incident more than two millennia old. Look for the following words and phrases in the text, and try to rephrase them in more current language, based on how you understand them.

• give thee medicine for thy child

• Pray tell me

• Kisa repaired to the Buddha

• there was no house but someone had died in it

• kinsmen

• Mark!

You know that we can combine sentences using words like and, or, but, yet and then. But sometimes no such word seems appropriate. In such a case was can use a semicolon (;) or a dash (−) to combine two clauses.

She has no interest in music; I doubt she will become a singer like her mother.

The second clause here gives the speaker’s opinion on the first clause.

Here is a sentence from the text that uses semicolons to combine clauses. Break up the sentence into three simple sentences. Can you then say which has a better rhythm when you read it, the single sentence using semicolons, or the three simple sentences?

For there is not any means by which those who have been born can avoid dying; after reaching old age there is death; of such a nature are living beings.

The Buddha’s sermon is over 2500 years old. Given below are two recent texts on the topic of grief. Read the texts, comparing them with each other and with the Buddha’s sermon. Do you think the Buddha’s ideas and way of teaching continue to hold meaning for us? Or have we found better ways to deal with grief? Discuss this in groups or in class.

Write a page on the following topic. You can think about the ideas in the text that are relevant to this topic, and add your own ideas and experiences to it.

Teaching someone to understand a new or difficult idea.

Write a page on the following topic. You can think about the ideas in the text that are relevant to this topic, and add your own ideas and experiences to it.

Helping each other to get over difficult times

Write a page on the following topic. You can think about the ideas in the text that are relevant to this topic, and add your own ideas and experiences to it.

Thinking about oneself as unique, or as one among billions of others