History of India: previous-year questions

Answer: (C) Mahakasyapa

The First Buddhist Council met at the Saptaparni cave, Rajagriha, soon after the Buddha's death (c. 483 BCE) under the patronage of Ajatashatru, with Mahakasyapa presiding; Ananda recited the Sutta Pitaka and Upali the Vinaya Pitaka, which is why both appear as distractors. The remaining councils: Second at Vaishali (c. 383 BCE, king Kalashoka, president Sabakami), where the Sthaviravadin-Mahasanghika split began; Third at Pataliputra (c. 250 BCE, Ashoka, president Moggaliputta Tissa), which compiled the Abhidhamma Pitaka; Fourth in Kashmir (Kundalvana) under Kanishka, with Vasumitra presiding and Ashvaghosha as deputy, after which Buddhism divided into Hinayana and Mahayana.

Answer: (B) Agathocles

Agathocles, an Indo-Greek (Bactrian) king of about 190-180 BCE, issued bilingual coins found at Ai-Khanoum (Afghanistan) showing Samkarshana-Balarama with plough and mace and Vasudeva-Krishna with wheel and conch, the earliest known images of these deities. Menander (A) is the Milinda of the Buddhist text Milindapanho, who ruled from Sakala (Sialkot) and conversed with the monk Nagasena; Heliocles and Archebius were later, minor rulers. Also remember Heliodorus, ambassador of King Antialcidas, who set up the Garuda pillar at Besnagar (Vidisha) in honour of Vasudeva. The Indo-Greeks were the first in India to issue gold coins and coins bearing the names and portraits of kings.

Answer: (B) MirJumla

Mir Jumla (Mir Muhammad Said), a Persian merchant who had risen to be wazir of Golconda and controlled its diamond mines, went over to the Mughals and presented the Kohinoor to Shah Jahan in 1656. He later became Aurangzeb's governor of Bengal and died in 1663 after his Assam campaign. Journey of the diamond: Mughals, then Nadir Shah (1739, who gave it the name Koh-i-Noor, 'Mountain of Light'), Ahmad Shah Abdali, Shah Shuja, Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1813), and the British after the annexation of Punjab (1849). Murad, Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh were Shah Jahan's sons (the fourth being Shuja), who fought the war of succession of 1657-58.

Answer: (B) Sher Shah

Sher Shah Suri (1540-45) built or restored the Sadak-e-Azam from Sonargaon in Bengal to the Indus near Peshawar, with shade trees and about 1,700 sarais (rest houses, set roughly two kos apart) that also served as dak-chaukis (postal stations); the British later renamed it the Grand Trunk Road. His other roads ran from Agra to Burhanpur, Agra to Jodhpur and Chittor, and Lahore to Multan. Also remember his silver rupiya and copper dam, land measurement with patta and qabuliyat, and his tomb at Sasaram. He defeated Humayun at Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540) and died at the siege of Kalinjar (1545). Humayun, Akbar and Jahangir used and maintained the road but did not lay it out.

Answer: (C) Fatehpur

Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351-88), the great builder among the Delhi Sultans, founded Firozabad (Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi), Fatehabad, Hissar (Hisar-i-Firoza), Jaunpur (named after his cousin Muhammad bin Tughlaq, whose earlier name was Jauna Khan) and Firozpur. Fatehpur is not among his foundations; the best-known Fatehpur, Fatehpur Sikri, was built by Akbar from 1571. Other Firoz facts for the exam: canals from the Yamuna and Sutlej, an irrigation tax (haqq-i-sharb), Diwan-i-Khairat (charity) and Diwan-i-Bandagan (department of slaves), jizya extended to Brahmins, two Ashokan pillars brought to Delhi from Topra and Meerut, and his autobiography Futuhat-i-Firozshahi.

Answer: (C) Akbar

Akbar abolished the pilgrim tax on Hindu pilgrims in 1563 and the jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims) in 1564, early steps in his policy of sulh-i-kul (peace with all). Timeline of his religious policy: 1562, ban on enslaving prisoners of war; 1575, Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri; 1579, the Mahzar (so-called infallibility decree); 1582, Tauhid-i-Ilahi (Din-i-Ilahi). Jizya was reimposed by Aurangzeb in 1679. Of the other options, Humayun and Sher Shah made no such change, and Jahangir is remembered for his chain of justice and twelve ordinances rather than tax reform.

Answer: (B) Alauddin Hussain Shah

Rupa and Sanatana were high officials of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah of Bengal (1493-1519), founder of the Husain Shahi dynasty: Sanatana bore the title Sakar Mallik and Rupa was Dabir-i-Khas (private secretary). After meeting Sri Chaitanya at Ramkeli near Gaur (Malda) they gave up office and became leaders of the Six Goswamis of Vrindavan, who shaped Gaudiya Vaishnava theology. Husain Shah's reign is regarded as a golden age of the Bengal Sultanate, tolerant in religion and a patron of Bengali literature (the Mahabharata was rendered into Bengali under his officers Paragal Khan and Chhuti Khan). Ilyas Shah founded the Ilyas Shahi dynasty (1342), and his son Sikandar Shah built the Adina Mosque at Pandua.

Answer: (C) Sher Shah

Malik Muhammad Jaisi, a Sufi poet from Jais in Awadh, completed 'Padmavat' in 1540, when Sher Shah Suri was on the throne of Delhi; the poem itself praises Sher Shah as the reigning Sultan. Written in Awadhi, it is a Sufi allegorical romance about Ratansen of Chittor, Princess Padmavati of Simhala and Alauddin Khalji's siege of Chittor (1303). That is why Alauddin Khalji (A) is the tempting wrong answer: he is a character in the story, not the contemporary ruler. Jaisi's other works are Akhravat and Akhiri Kalam. Other Sufi premakhyan poems: Mulla Daud's Chandayan and Qutban's Mrigavati.

Answer: (C) Skandagupta

Skandagupta (c. 455-467 CE) repelled the first Huna invasion, an achievement recorded in his Bhitari pillar inscription; his Junagadh rock inscription records the repair of the Sudarshana lake. Among the distractors, Samudragupta is known from Harishena's Allahabad pillar inscription for his conquests of other Indian kings ('Napoleon of India'); Chandragupta II Vikramaditya defeated the Western Kshatrapas (Shakas) and is linked with the Mehrauli iron pillar and Fa-Hien's visit; and Bhanugupta is mentioned in the Eran inscription (510 CE), the earliest epigraphic record of sati. In the next century the Huna chiefs Toramana and Mihirakula overran north India until Yashodharman of Malwa defeated Mihirakula (Mandsaur inscription).

Answer: (B) Alauddin

Alauddin Khalji (1296-1316) was the first Sultan of Delhi to keep a large permanent standing army paid in cash from the royal treasury instead of by iqta (land assignments); a trooper with one horse received 234 tankas a year. To make this pay sufficient he fixed prices through his market regulations, and to prevent fraud he introduced dagh (branding of horses) and chehra (descriptive rolls of soldiers). The others are known for different things: Iltutmish organised the iqta system and issued the silver tanka and copper jital; Balban created the Diwan-i-Arz (military department) and followed a policy of 'blood and iron'; Muhammad bin Tughlaq tried token currency and shifted the capital to Daulatabad.

Answer: (A) Abdur Rahim Khan-I-Khanan

Babur wrote his memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Baburi or Baburnama, in Chagatai Turki, his mother tongue. They were translated into Persian in 1589-90 on Akbar's orders by Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, son of Bairam Khan, one of Akbar's 'nine gems' and himself a famous Hindi poet (Rahim's dohas). The distractors and their works: Badauni wrote Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh and translated the Ramayana into Persian; Faizi, Abul Fazl's brother, translated Lilavati and wrote Nal-Daman; Gulbadan Begum, Babur's daughter, wrote the Humayun-nama. Abul Fazl wrote the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari, and the Mahabharata was translated into Persian as the Razmnama.

Answer: (B) 1028

The Rigveda, the oldest of the four Vedas, has 1,028 hymns (suktas) with about 10,600 verses arranged in 10 mandalas; the figure is made up of 1,017 regular hymns plus 11 Valakhilya hymns added to the eighth mandala, which is why 1,017 appears as a distractor. Mandalas II to VII (the 'family books') are the oldest, and I and X the latest. Mandala III contains the Gayatri mantra, Mandala IX is devoted to Soma, and Mandala X has the Purusha Sukta (first mention of the four varnas) and the Nasadiya Sukta (hymn of creation). Indra is the most frequently invoked deity, followed by Agni.

Answer: (D) Anguttara Nikaya

The standard list of the sixteen Mahajanapadas comes from the Anguttara Nikaya, one of the five Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka; the Jain Bhagavati Sutra gives a somewhat different list. The sixteen are Anga, Magadha, Kashi, Kosala, Vajji, Malla, Chedi, Vatsa, Kuru, Panchala, Matsya, Surasena, Assaka, Avanti, Gandhara and Kamboja; Assaka on the Godavari was the only one south of the Vindhyas. 'Tripitaka' (A) is the name of the whole Pali canon (Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitakas) and is too broad an answer; the Dipavamsa (B) is a Sri Lankan chronicle; and the Digha Nikaya (C) is the collection of long discourses. The five Nikayas: Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta, Anguttara and Khuddaka.

Answer: (D) Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

'Asato ma sadgamaya, tamaso ma jyotirgamaya, mrityor ma amritam gamaya' (lead me from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality) is the Pavamana mantra of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.3.28), which belongs to the Shukla Yajurveda and also contains the dialogues of Yajnavalkya with Gargi and Maitreyi. Sources of other well-known phrases: 'Satyameva Jayate' (national motto), Mundaka Upanishad, which is why it is offered as a distractor; 'Tat Tvam Asi', Chandogya Upanishad; 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', Maha Upanishad; the Gayatri mantra, Rigveda; the story of Nachiketa and Yama, Katha Upanishad; 'Yato Dharmastato Jayah' (motto of the Supreme Court), Mahabharata.

Answer: (D) Horse

Harappan seals, mostly square and made of steatite, show the 'unicorn' (the most common motif), humped bull, elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, buffalo, goat and ram, but not the horse. The absence of the horse (and of the lion and cow) from the seals is a standard point of contrast with Vedic culture, in which the horse is central; the horse bones reported from Surkotada remain disputed. The famous 'Pashupati' seal from Mohenjodaro shows a seated horned figure surrounded by an elephant, tiger, rhinoceros and buffalo, with two deer below. Sheep and goats were domesticated by the Harappans and horned rams appear in their art, so option C is not the answer.

Answer: (A) 200 years

The Tripartite Struggle for control of Kannauj between the Palas, the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas ran from the late 8th century to the early 10th century, roughly 200 years. It outlasted 50 or 100 years by far and ended well before 400 years, as all three powers had declined by the 10th century.

Answer: (D) Lord Cornwallis

The Sunset Law was part of Lord Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement of 1793: a zamindar who failed to pay the fixed revenue by sunset on the due date had his estate auctioned. Lytton, Ripon and Bentinck were later Governors-General and had nothing to do with this rule.

Answer: (A) Sivaji and Jay Singh.

In 1665 Shivaji, besieged at Purandar, signed a treaty with Raja Jai Singh of Amber, Aurangzeb's commander, surrendering 23 forts. The 1776 Treaty of Purandar between the Company and the Marathas is a different treaty, and Tipu and Ranjit Singh signed no treaty at Purandar.

Answer: (B) 1498

Vasco da Gama reached Calicut (Kozhikode) in May 1498 after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. He had set sail from Lisbon in 1497, which is the tempting wrong option; 1757 is the Battle of Plassey and 1598 has no link to his voyage.

Answer: (B) the Cholas

The Chola kingdom was divided into mandalams (provinces), which were subdivided into valanadus and nadus, with villages run by assemblies like the ur and sabha. This layered administrative system is the classic feature of the Cholas, not of the Pallavas, Pandyas or Rashtrakutas.