Solution: (b)
Pali is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism are preserved. The Pali texts are the oldest collection of Buddhist scriptures preserved in the language in which they were written down.
Gautama Buddha was born at
(a) Kusinagar
(b) Sarnath
(c) Bodh Gaya
(d) Lumbini
Solution: (d)
Lumbini is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi district of Nepal. It is the place where Queen Mayadevi gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama, who as the Buddha Gautama founded the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha lived between roughly 563 and 483 BC.
The paintings of Ajanta depict the stories of
(a) Ramayana
(b) Mahabharta
(c) Jataka
(d) Panchatantra
Solution: (c)
The scenes depicted in the Ajanta paintings are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha’s former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle.
Poet Kalidasa lived in the court of
(a) Chandragupta Maurya
(b) Samudragupta
(c) Chandragupta Vikramaditya
(d) Harsha
Solution: (c)
Kalidasa is generally associated with Chandragupta II who was one of the most powerful emperors of the Gupta empire in northern India. It was during his reign that the Gupta Empire achieved its zenith, art, architecture, and sculpture flourished, and the cultural development of ancient India reached its climax. Culturally, the reign of Chandragupta II marked a Golden Age. This is evidenced by later reports of the presence of a circle of poets known as the Nine Gems in his court. The greatest among them was Kalidasa.
Which was the oldest University?
(a) Gandhara
(b) Kanauj
(c) Nalanda
(d) Vaishali
Solution: (c)
Nalanda was an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar which was a religious center of learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE. At its peak, the university attracted scholars and students from as far away as Tibet, China, Greece, and Persia. Nalanda was ransacked and destroyed by an army under Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193.
Kalibangan is situated in
(a) Uttar Pradesh
(b) Sindh
(c) Rajasthan
(d) Gujarat
Solution: (c)
Kalibangan is a town located on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar (Ghaggar-Hakra River), identified by some scholars with Sarasvati River in Tehsil Pilibangan, between Suratgarh and Hanumangarh in Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan, near Bikaner. It was a major provincial capital of the Indus Valley Civilization. Kalibangan is distinguished by its unique fire altars and “world’s earliest attested ploughed field.
Mahabalipuram is an important city that reveals the interest in arts of
(a) Pallavas
(b) Cheras
(c) Pandyas
(d) Chalukyas
Solution: (a)
Mahabalipuram was a 7th century port city of the South Indian dynasty of the Pallavas around 60 km south from the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu. The name Mamallapuram is believed to have been given after the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who took on the epithet Maha-malla (great wrestler), as the favourite sport of the Pallavas was wrestling. It has various historic monuments built largely between the 7th and the 9th centuries, and has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Which language was mostly used for the propagation of Buddhism?
(a) Sanskrit
(b) Prakrit
(c) Pali
(d ) Sauraseni
Solution: (c)
Pali is a Middle Indo-Aryan language (of Prakrit group) of the Indian subcontinent. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pali Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism. Pali is a literary language of the Prakrit language family and was first written down in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE.
Sangam Age is associated with the history of
(a) Benaras
(b) Allahabad
(c) Tamil Nadu
(d) Khajuraho
Solution: (c)
Sangam period is the period in the history of ancient southern India (known as the Tamilakam) spanning from c. 30th century BC to c. 4th century CE. It is named after the famous Sangam academies of poets and scholars centered in the city of Madurai. In old Tamil language, the term Tamilakam referred to the whole of the ancient Tamil-speaking area, corresponding roughly to the present-day Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, parts of Andhra Pradesh, parts of Karnataka and northern Sri Lanka.
Who was the court poet of Harsha?
(a) Bhani
(b) Ravi Kirti
(c) Banabhatta
(d) Vishnu Sharma
Solution: (c)
Banabhatta was a Sanskrit prose writer and poet of India. He was the Asthana Kavi in the court of King Harshavardhana, who reigned in the years century. 606–647 CE in north India.
