The Sermon at Benaras Class 10: Words and Expressions 2 Unit

The Sermon at Benaras Class 10 appears twice in NCERT books: as a prose chapter in First Flight and as a full workbook unit in Words and Expressions 2, the English workbook that accompanies it.

This page covers the workbook unit, which runs from about workbook page 110 to page 123 in the printed book. It adds poems, a prose passage, grammar, vocabulary and listening work around the same story. The official PDF is right below, and every activity in the unit is explained underneath it.

Open the official NCERT Class 10 English Words and Expressions 2 Unit: The Sermon at Benaras PDF from the NCERT website and keep it open beside you as you work through the exercises — the unit starts near workbook page 110 and ends at page 123.

The unit at a glance

Before you open the file, this table shows the blocks of the unit in the order they appear in the workbook, and what each one asks you to do.

This unit is a companion workbook, not the First Flight chapter itself. Its exercises assume you have read the prose story in First Flight before you begin. The same workbook also holds other units, such as the Words and Expressions 2 unit on Madam Rides the Bus, but this page covers the Sermon unit only.

The two main texts in this unit

The reading material comes first: a prose argument, then a poem, each with its own questions and word list. If you need the First Flight story retold, the Class 10 English notes cover the chapter.

Text I: the Dalai Lama on the root of happiness

The extract comes from The Transformed Mind by the Dalai Lama (workbook pages 110–111). His claim is simple: if we want a happier humanity, the root to tackle lies within the human mind, not only in the economy or in political power.

Every action, he argues, has some motivation, so intelligence is useful only when it is joined with human affection and compassion — what he calls ‘human feeling’. An individual’s intentions and society’s interests are correlated: if social values turn negative, everyone suffers.

He then names education and family life as the two areas that matter most, and defines ‘spiritual development’ not in a religious sense but as having a good and compassionate heart. Such a heart, he says, brings inner strength, less fear and doubt, and more friends.

Its questions send you back to those three moves: the root of the problem, what ‘human feeling’ refers to, and what ‘spiritual development’ means. One question asks what a compassionate heart brings, so list the benefits the passage gives.

Look Up and Understand words for this text: humanity, motivation, correlation, spiritual, compassionate. Find each one in the passage and write a sentence of your own for it.

Text II: ‘The Ballad of Father Gilligan’

Text II is a poem by W.B. Yeats (workbook pages 112–114). Father Gilligan is an old priest, weary night and day, because half his parishioners are sick or dead.

When another dying man sends for him at the ‘moth-hour of eve’, he cries that he has no rest, joy or peace — then at once reproaches himself: ‘my body spake, not I.’

He falls asleep on his chair. Through the night the stars come out and fade; at sparrow-chirp he wakes, sure the man has died.

He rides ‘with little care’ — the poem means he is careless of the road, not of people — and the sick man’s wife meets him with the news: her husband died an hour ago, ‘as merry as a bird’.

The answers to the poem’s questions are in those details. ‘The moth-hour’ that goes and returns marks the passage of time, so the multiple-choice answer is (b).

When the priest hears the man is dead and then learns an angel had come in his place, he is full of grief and self-condemnation — option (c) — and kneels in thanks: God ‘had pity on the least of things.’

Look Up and Understand words: flock, grieve, parishioners, spake, peep, pity, roused, swayed. Most are old or poetic forms; ‘spake’ simply means spoke.

How the four texts handle death and loss

The unit frames everything through one comparison. Its Let’s Begin activity asks you to list the similarities and differences between the Sermon at Benaras story and Holland’s poem. The comparison table below lines up all four texts the unit places beside that question, because this contrast is the unit’s central idea.

Notice the direction of travel. The legend and the poem look at loss from the side of the living; the ballad shows the dying man’s peace. The Dalai Lama passage widens the same idea from one grieving mother to all of society.

Reported speech, step by step

The grammar block of this unit is direct to indirect speech conversion (workbook pages 115–116). Learn the four changes below and every sentence in the exercise converts the same way.

The workbook’s own definition: we use direct speech when we repeat someone’s words exactly, and indirect speech when we report what someone said in our own words.

• Reporting verb: choose the verb for what the sentence does — said to becomes told when a listener is named; questions use asked; requests use asked or requested.
• Pronouns: switch to the reporter’s viewpoint — I becomes he or she, you becomes I or she, my becomes his or her.
• Nearness to remoteness: now, here, this, tomorrow move to then, there, that, the next day.
• Commands and requests: use to + verb (told me to wait) and not to + verb (asked me not to speak).

When the reporting verb is past (said, told, asked), tenses also move one step back: am becomes was, have becomes had, will becomes would. Check every verb as you convert.

Here is an original conversation between two students, Naveen and Priya, the morning before a test. Each line is converted below, with the change named.

Naveen said to Priya, ‘I have lost my maths notebook again.’

Priya said, ‘You are always careless with your things.’

Naveen asked, ‘Will you help me find it before tomorrow’s test?’

Priya said, ‘Now calm down and check your bag once more.’

Naveen said, ‘Please don’t mention this to anyone.’

The unit’s own exercise is the same task on a longer passage: rewrite the Kisa Gotami passage (‘Kisa Gotami had an only son…’) from First Flight, page 134, in reported speech. There is also a short fable about a crow, a swan and a peacock to convert; the technique is identical.

Common mistakes to avoid in this unit

Three skills in this unit — reporting speech, editing and listening — have characteristic slip-ups. The table names each one and how to check yourself.

Editing: restoring the missing prepositions

The editing task (workbook page 118) is a paragraph, headed ‘The Wild Geese’, about the young Prince Siddhartha and a wounded goose. Words and prepositions have been left out, and you must supply them: you are restoring the story, not rewriting it.

Siddhartha is on his way to the royal gardens by the river when a flock of wild geese passes overhead. His cousin Devadatta shoots an arrow into the flock, and one goose falls wounded in front of Siddhartha, who lifts the bird and draws the arrow out.

When Devadatta’s messenger comes to claim the goose, Siddhartha refuses: he saved its life, so it belongs to him.

The pattern to notice: verbs and adjectives lock onto fixed prepositions (filled with, in front of), and noun groups need their small words (a flock of, an arrow). Read each corrected sentence aloud — if the phrase sounds complete, you have the right word.

Try the same eye on a fresh sentence: ‘One day Ravi was walking to the park with his younger sister. A group of boys flew a kite, and the kite got stuck in a high branch.’ The repairs follow the same rules.

Vocabulary: sermon words and the silent W

The vocabulary work (workbook pages 115–116) has three parts: antonyms from the First Flight text, near-synonym families from a dictionary, and two Fun Facts boxes on the silent W and the allude/elude pair.

Finding opposites in the text

The exercise gives you seven antonyms and asks you to find the matching words inside the First Flight text ‘The Sermon at Benaras’. The clues: unfit, joy, contentment, found, cheered, lively, calm. All answers are words in that passage, so a guess that is not in the text is automatically wrong.

Two of the clues nearly answer themselves. ‘found’ points to the story’s central fact — the mother has lost her only son — so the text word is lost. ‘joy’ points to the story’s driving emotion, grief; the word you need is the one that names that feeling.

For the remaining five, read the passage once with the clue list open, underlining any word that could be the opposite of a clue. That is the whole skill the exercise tests: sighting a known word’s opposite inside real text.

Near-synonym families

The dictionary task asks for four words nearest in meaning to each of vow, preach, preserve, awaken, enlighten, reign. Model rows for two:

For the others, the first synonym of the family is enough to start: vow — promise; awaken — rouse; enlighten — inform; reign — rule.

Silent letter W, and the allude–elude pair

The Fun Facts box lists the silent letter W words: wrap, wrist, wreck. In each, the w is written but not pronounced — wrap sounds like ‘rap’, wrist like ‘rist’, wreck like ‘rek’.

The task asks for a sentence using the word, so try one sentence that holds all three: wearing a bandage round his wrist, he tried to wrap the page without a fresh wreck.

The second Fun Facts box gives allude = refer and elude = escape. You allude to a topic (the teacher alluded to the test without naming it); a problem eludes you (the answer eluded me all evening).

Listening: the Sanchi stupa passage

The listening activity (workbook pages 119–120) is a short narrative about the Sanchi stupa in Madhya Pradesh, with six questions. All six answers are inside the narrative itself — the skill is holding the map of the six listening answers to their exact places in the passage while you listen.

The photograph shows the structure the narrator is describing: a huge hemispherical stone dome built in the Mauryan period, ringed by a balustrade and gateways. Inside that dome sits the central chamber where, the narrative says, the relics of Lord Buddha are placed.

The four ornamental toranas, one facing each direction, and the balustrade were added in the first century BCE. One detail the picture cannot show, but the passage states: the stupa is the oldest stone structure in India, and it has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1989.

The torana carvings illustrate scenes from the Buddha’s life — the same events told in the Jataka tales. Here is where each of the six answers sits in the narrative:

So (f) ticks ‘events of Lord Buddha’s life’. The symbolic figures — thrones, wheels, footprints — are given in the same paragraph, but the question asks specifically what decorates the toranas.

After the listening passage, the workbook slips in a tongue twister — ‘I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop’ — for pronunciation practice. It is not tested; it is a warm-up before the speaking task.

Speaking and writing about grief

The speaking and writing tasks (workbook pages 121–122) both ask the same question: what do people in grief need from the people around them? The workbook gives the points; this section orders them into an answer.

Speaking: discuss the reasons and the remedy

The workbook’s frame is that everyone grieves in their own way. Loss can be a death, but it can also be the loss of abilities, or of something routine — a friendship, being head boy or head girl, playing for the school team.

• Possible reasons for grief: a death; loss of physical or cognitive abilities; losing something routine such as a friendship, a position or a place in a team.
• Ways of overcoming: naming the loss, talking to someone who listens, accepting small comforts, giving grief time, and returning slowly to routine.
• A point the workbook makes: grief is individual — what helps one person may not help another.

Writing: a paragraph on helping someone in grief

The writing task asks for a paragraph on how you can help others in grief, using points like observing how grief is expressed, reaching out, respecting refusals, standing by those who want to talk, being patient, and small comforts such as holding a hand. The workbook’s own phrase for the goal is a solace or a consolation.

Structure your paragraph as observation → action → respect → patience. As a model: people in grief seldom say what they need, so start by watching how they show it — some grow quiet, some talk endlessly, some become restless. Reach out gently, but respect it when someone refuses help: grief is personal, and not everyone shares it.

Stand by those who do want to talk, and let them set the pace. A small, patient gesture — sitting with them, holding their hand, simply staying — often says more than any words. That quiet consolation is what helps a grieving person feel less alone.

Note the difference between consoling and solving: you cannot undo a loss, and a paragraph that tries to ‘fix’ the person misses the point. The task wants presence, not repair.

The unit’s second writing task sends you to two poems in First Flight, pages 138–139, one by Kahlil Gibran and one by Rabindranath Tagore. Read them in groups of four, say what each poet is trying to say, and write a short summary of each to share with the class.

Project: Jataka tales

The project closes the unit by connecting the Buddha’s compassion to his earlier lives (workbook page 123). You work in a group of four and present the result to the class.

The project illustration shows what the finished work should look like: illustrated stories gathered into a collage for the classroom wall. The brief behind it has four steps:

1. Collect at least six Jataka tales about the previous births of Gautama Buddha, in human and animal form.
2. Read them and rewrite each story in your own words.
3. Develop the stories as a comic strip, or make a collage of them.
4. Illustrate the stories and display the collage in your class.

The project is not decoration. The Sanchi stupa’s toranas, from the listening passage, are carved with scenes from the Jataka tales, so the collage connects the stupa’s art to the Buddha’s teachings. The thread linking it to the rest of the unit is the same compassion the Buddha showed Kisa Gotami.

What this unit teaches

One idea runs through the whole unit: how people meet loss, and what compassion looks like in practice. The unit opens by defining a sermon, pairs the Kisa Gotami legend with Holland’s poem on death, adds the Dalai Lama’s argument for a compassionate mind, and closes with a ballad in which God sends an angel to a weary priest.

• Grammar: direct to indirect speech with four changes — reporting verb, pronouns, nearness to remoteness, to + verb; practice on the Kisa Gotami passage.
• Vocabulary: antonym hunting in the First Flight text; near-synonym families for vow, preach, preserve, awaken, enlighten, reign; silent W (wrap, wrist, wreck); allude refers, elude escapes.
• Editing: restoring prepositions in the Siddhartha and the wounded goose paragraph.
• Listening: Sanchi stupa — every one of the six answers sits in the narrative.
• Speaking and writing: grief is personal; help means observing, reaching out, respecting refusals, and being patient.
• Project: six Jataka tales retold in your own words as a comic strip or collage.

Sources and data verification

This listing is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session using the NCERT textbook information available to us. NCERT remains the authority for confirming the latest edition.

The unit described on this page is from NCERT’s Words and Expressions 2, the Class 10 English workbook — the unit on ‘The Sermon at Benaras’, printed around workbook pages 110–123 in the official edition published on ncert.nic.in. This page covers that workbook unit only.

It does not reproduce the First Flight chapter ‘The Sermon at Benaras’, and it does not cover the workbook’s other units. For Class 10 material across subjects, the Class 10 hub is the starting point; the First Flight chapter itself is in your First Flight textbook.

This listing is maintained for the current academic session using the NCERT textbook information published on ncert.nic.in. NCERT settles the textbook, its editions and its PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official CBSE syllabus.

Frequently asked questions

Is this unit the same as the chapter ‘The Sermon at Benaras’ in First Flight?

No. The prose lesson — the Kisa Gotami story and the Buddha’s sermon — is in First Flight. Words and Expressions 2 is the companion workbook: it gives you further reading (the Holland poem, the Dalai Lama passage, the Yeats ballad) and exercises in grammar, vocabulary, listening and writing on the same theme.

Its activities assume you have read the First Flight chapter first.

Where is the Kisa Gotami story, since it is not printed in this unit?

It is in the First Flight chapter, in the passage the workbook points to on page 134. The unit’s Reported Speech exercise tells you to take that passage and rewrite it in indirect speech, so keep the chapter open while you do the grammar work.

Do I need Words and Expressions 2 for the board exam?

Its exercises practise the grammar, vocabulary, listening and writing skills that the board paper tests, so working through it is useful preparation. But textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical — check the current official CBSE syllabus to see what is examinable this session. NCERT publishes the workbook; CBSE sets the curriculum and the examination.

How do I attempt the listening section at home?

The unit says to listen to a recording of the narrative, or ask your teacher, sibling or friend to read it aloud. All six answers are inside the passage, so listen for the monument’s name and state, the visitors, the Mauryan period and Ashoka, the central chamber holding the Buddha’s relics, the first-century-BCE additions, and the torana decorations.

What is the point of the Jataka tales project?

It takes the Buddha’s compassion beyond the Kisa Gotami story into his earlier births. You collect at least six Jataka tales, in human and animal form, retell them in your own words, and present them as a comic strip or collage — the unit asks you to illustrate the stories and display the collage in class.

The Sanchi stupa’s toranas are carved with scenes from these same tales, so the project ties the unit’s listening text to its theme.

Reference: NCERT Class 10 English Words and Expressions 2 textbook, unit ‘The Sermon at Benaras’, official edition on ncert.nic.in.