Solution: (c)
Ibn Battuta, the famous Moroccan traveler, visited India during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Muhammad bin Tughluq was renowned as the wealthiest man in the Muslim World at that time. He patronized various scholars, sufis, qadis, viziers and other functionaries in order to consolidate his rule. On the strength of his years of study in Mecca, Ibn Batuta was appointed a qazi, or judge, by the sultan. He found it difficult to enforce Islamic laws beyond the sultan’s court in Delhi, due to lack of Islamic appeal in India.
Where did Babar die?
(a) Agra
(b) Kabul
(c) Lahore
(d) Delhi
Solution: (a)
Baur died on December 26, 1530 at Agra. Though he wished to be buried in his favourite garden in Kabul, a city he had always loved, he was first buried in a mausoleum in the capital city of Agra. His remains were later moved to Bagh-e Babur (Babur Gardens) in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Persian inscription on his tomb there translates as “If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this!
The Lodi dynasty was founded by
(a) Ibrahim Lodi
(b) Sikandar Lodi
(c) Bahlol Lodi
(d) Khizr Khan
Solution: (c)
Lodi Dynasty was a Pashtun dynasty that was the last dynasty to rule the Delhi Sultanate. The dynasty founded by Bahlul Lodi ruled from 1451 to 1526. The last ruler of this dynasty, Ibrahim Lodi was defeated and killed by Babur in the first Battle of Panipat on April 20, 1526.
The Upanishads were translated by Dara Shikoh in Persian under the title of
(a) Mayma-ul-Bahrain
(b) Sirr-i-Akbar
(c) Al-Fihrist
(d) Kitabul Bayan
Solution: (b)
Dara Shikoh, Emperor Shah Jahan’s son and brother of Aurangzeb, tranlsated the Upanishads into Persian, with the help of several pundits of Banaras. His translation of the Upanishads is appropriately called Sirr-i-Akbar, ‘The Greatest Secret.’ Before Sirr-i-Akbar he had written several other books, the most famous of which is Majma ul-Bahrain [‘The Mingling of Two Oceans’], an independent work devoted to discovering the affinities between Vedantic and Sufi perceptions of the Ultimate Truth.
The Coronation of Shivaji took place in
(a) 1627 A.D.
(b) 1674 A.D.
(c) 1680 A.D.
(d) 1670 A.D.
Solution: (b)
On 6th June 1674, Shivaji’s coronation ceremony was performed according to the shastras by Vishweshwar, also called Gaga Bhatta, of Varanasi, a master of the four Vedas, the six philosophies and all the Hindu scriptures after he had gone through the genealogy brought by Balaji Avji Prabhu, Shivaji’s secretary, which showed that the Bhonsles were a branch of the highly respected Sisodias of Mewar, the Kshatriyas of the purest Rajput clan.
Painting reached its highest level of development during the reign of
(a) Akbar
(b) Aurangzeb
(c) Jahangir
(d) Shah Jahan
Solution: (c)
Mughal painting reached its zenith under Jahangir, a great connoisseur and outstanding patron of painting. As a young prince, Jahangir had founded his own atelier, under the supervision of master Aqa Riza. His artists developed a new, naturalistic style distinctive for ist subdued palette, psychologically expressive portraiture, and outstanding natural history painting.
The famous Peacock Throne of Shah Jahan was taken away in 1739 by
(a) Afghan invader Ahmed Shah Abdali
(b) Persian invader Nadir Shah
(c) Mongol invader Chengiz Khan
(d) British East India Company
Solution: (b)
The Peacock Throne, called Takht-e Tavus in Persian, is the name originally given to a Mughal throne of India. Nader Shah invaded the Mughal Empire in 1738, and returned to Persia in 1739 with the original Peacock Throne as well as many other treasures, amounting to a very large reduction in Indian wealth, taken from the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah.
Humayun Nama was written by
(a) Humayun
(b) Akbar
(c) Abul Fazl
(d) Gulbadan Begum
Solution: (d)
Gulbadan Begum was a Perso-Turkic Princess, the daughter of Emperor Zahir ud-Din Mohammad Babur of India, who is most known as the author of Humayun Nama, the account of the life of her brother, Humayun. Akbar commissioned Gulbadan Begum to chronicle the story of her brother Humayun. She took the challenge and produced a document titled Ahwal Humayun Padshah Jamah Kardom Gulbadan Begum bint Babur Padshah amma Akbar Padshah. It came to be known as Humayun-nama.
Krishna Deva Raya was a contemporary of
(a) Shershah
(b) Humayun
(c) Babur
(d) Akbar
Solution: (c)
Krishna Deva Raya was an Emperor of the Vijayanagara Empire who reigned from 1509–1529 CE. The time period of Babur’s reign in India was from 1526 to 1530.
Who was the Guru of Kabir?
(a) Ramanuja
(b) Ramananda
(c) Vallabhacharya
(d) Namadeva
Solution: (b)
The early spiritual training of Kabir came from Ramananda, who became his guru when Kabir was still a child. There are various versions of how Ramananda came to accept Kabir as his disciple. What all the versions agree is that Kabir tricked Ramananda into giving him a mantra for meditation, which forced him to accept Kabir as his disciple.
