Ancient History Art And Culture — Part 2 MCQs with Explanations

The whole empire was divided into mandalams or provinces. Sometimes princes of the royal family were appointed governors of the provinces. Further they were divided into valanadus (divisions), nadus (districts) and kurrams (villages). Village was the basic unit of administration.

The Samaveda is the Veda of melodies and chants. It is an ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, and part of the scriptures of Hinduism. One of the four Vedas, it is a liturgical text which consists of 1,549 verses. All but 75 verses have been taken from the Rigveda.

The Yajurveda is the Veda primarily of prose mantras for worship rituals. An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, it is a compilation of ritual offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire.

Bodhi Tree is the symbol of nirvana of Gautama Buddha. On the other hand, Stupa represents the symbol of death of Gautama Buddha. Further, The symbol ‘Horse’ signifies the renunciation of Buddha’s life.

The Kailasa temple (Cave 16) is one of the 34 cave temples and monasteries known collectively as the Ellora Caves. Its construction is generally attributed to the eighth century Rashtrakuta king Krishna I ( r . c. 756 – 773). The temple architecture shows traces of Pallava and Chalukya styles.

The Brahmanas are prose texts. It describes about the meaning of Vedic hymns, their applications, and stories of their origins in details. Besides, it also explains the details about rituals and philosophies. Aranyakas and Upanishads exemplify philosophical meditations of the hermits and ascetics on soul, god, world, etc. These are partly included in the Brahmanas or attached, and partly exist as separate works. They, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas, and the Upanishads are attached to one or the other of the four Vedas.

The Mathura Museum has a great collection of sculptures which belong to Mathura School of Art. Dating from 3rd century to 12th century. It has artifacts of the Gupta and Kushan Kingdoms as they were prominent in this region and districs of Mathura.

Uttar Mimamsa is the Vedanta, one of the most significant of all Indian philosophies. As compared to other systems, its advent and growth is recent. Still it is the most influential orthodox philosophical systems of India.

"Aryan" is a term that was used as a self-designation by Indo-Iranian people. The word was used by the Indic people of the Vedic period in India as an ethnic label for themselves and to refer to the noble class as well as the geographic region known as Āryāvarta, where Indo-Aryan culture is based.

Kautilya’s Arthashastra, a book on statecraft was written in the Mauryan period not in Gupta period. The text is divided into 15 chapters known as books. Different books deal with different subject matter concerning polity, economy and society. It appears that even before the final version of Arthashastra was written in the fourth century B.C. by Kautilya, there appeared a tradition of writing on and teaching of statecrafts because Kautilya acknowledges his debt to his predecessors in the field.

Ashoka is known as the 'Father of Inscriptions' due to the extensive number of inscriptions he issued across his empire. These inscriptions were inscribed on rocks and pillars and were written in languages like Prakrit and Brahmi script . Ashoka's inscriptions are significant as they provide detailed insights into his administration, his promotion of Buddhism , and his moral code known as Dhamma . While Samudragupta is known for the Prayag Prashasti, Ashoka's contributions through his inscriptions have a far-reaching impact on Indian history and culture.

Simuka was the founder of the Satavahana Dynasty and he is believed to have destroyed the Shunga Power. He did so with the aid of the Rathikas and Bhojakas. He reigned for around 23 years and was beheaded by his brother Kanha, who succeeded him.

Nalanda was very likely ransacked and destroyed by an army of the Mamluk Dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate under Bakhtiyar Khilji in c. 1200 CE. Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji was the military general of Qutb-ud-Din Aibak. He burned Nalanda University and Vikramshila University in 1193.

The history of the Great Wall of China began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771–476 BC) and the Warring States periods (475–221 BC) were connected by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, to protect his newly founded Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) against incursions by nomads from Inner Asia. The Great Wall of China was built during the reign of the China (Qin) Dynasty.

The invasion in ancient India was firstly done by Greeks then Sakas and then Kushanas.

The inscriptions found in the central and eastern part of India were written in Magadhi Prakrit using the Brahmi script, while Prakrit using the Kharoshthi script, Greek and Aramaic were used in the northwest. These edicts were deciphered by British archaeologist and historian James Prinsep.

Teaching- Learning, Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Social, Environment and Teacher- Taught relation. The Upanishads are the cream of the Vedas. The Upanishads contain the essence of the Vedas. They are the source of the Vedanta philosophy.

Ajivika is one of the nāstika or "heterodox" schools of Indian philosophy. Ājīvika philosophy reached the height of its popularity during the rule of the Mauryan emperor Bindusara, around the 4th century BCE. Bindusara had interest in it.

The Vedic Period or the Vedic Age refers to that time period when the Vedic Sanskrit texts were composed in India.

Vardhaman attained the state of enlightenment at Jrimbhik Gram.

Chandragupta assumed the title Maharajadhiraja ("king of great kings") and issued gold coins, which suggests that he was the first imperial ruler of the dynasty.

The ancient Indian literature is mostly religious in nature. The Puranic and Epic literature are considered as history by Indians, but it contains no definite dates for events and kingdoms. The effort of history writing was shown by a large number of inscriptions, coins, and local chronicles. The principles of history are preserved in the Puranas and Epics.

Aryabhatta was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. He is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of which are lost. His main works are Aryabhatiya and Arya-siddhanta.

Caste system in the Rig Vedic times was based on occupations. But in the later Vedic period it became rigid when the Brahmins influenced the society with caste system.

Sanchi Stupa, also written Sanci, is a Buddhist complex, famous for its Great Stupa, on a hilltop at Sanchi Town in Raisen District of the State of Madhya Pradesh, India.

Rashtrakuta was a royal dynasty ruling large parts of the Indian subcontinent between the sixth and 10th centuries.

The Ramcharitmanas is written in vernacular Awadhi language, The core of the work is considered by some to be a poetic retelling of the events of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana by Valmiki. The Valmiki Ramayana is centered on the narrative of Rama, the scion of the family tree of king Raghu of the Sun Dynasty.

The primary aim of the visit of Hiuen Tsang to India was to gain knowledge of Buddhism and collect its religious texts.

The earliest specimen of the kavya style is found in the Junagadh inscription of Rudradaman in Kathiawar in about ad 150. From then onwards, inscriptions began to be composed in chaste Sanskrit, although the use of Prakrit in composing inscriptions continued till the fourth century and even later.

"Truth alone triumphs" is a mantra from the ancient Indian scripture Mundaka Upanishad. Following the independence of India, it was adopted as the national motto of India in 26 January 1950. It is inscribed in script at the base of the national emblem.

Dharmasastra became influential in modern colonial India history, when they were formulated by early British colonial administrators to be the law of the land for all non-Muslims (Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs) in India, after Sharia was already accepted as the law for Muslims in colonial India. Smriti, literally "that which is remembered" are a body of Hindu texts usually attributed to an author, traditionally written down but constantly revised, in contrast to Śrutis considered authorless, that were transmitted verbally across the generations and fixed.

Adi Shankaracharya wished to grace the Indian subcontinent by establishing five major mathas in the four corners of the peninsula – north (Jyothirmath), south (Sringeri,Kanchi ), east (Puri), west (Dwaraka) – to propagate the philosophy of advaita vedanta and to promulgate the concept of Sanatana dharma, thus establishing dharma or righteousness, as the way of life of people.

Tamralipti was an ancient port city and also one of Buddhist Kingdoms visited by Xuanzang in 639 AD. It has been identified with the modern Tamluk in the Midnapur district, West Bengal, India.

The Earliest known works of Indian literature was Rig Veda, which is a collection of 1028 hymns written in Vedic Sanskrit. Even though majority of the literary works which have survived from the ancient Indian literature are religious text, it is not right to define ancient Indian literature only based on religion.

Puhar Port, was once a flourishing ancient port city known as Kaveri poompattinam, which for a while served as the capital of the Early Chola kings in Tamilakam. Puhar is located near the end point of the Kaveri river, aside the sea coast.

Mamallapuram, or Mahabalipuram, is a town on a strip of land between the Bay of Bengal and the Great Salt Lake, in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It’s known for its temples and monuments built by the Pallava dynasty in the 7th and 8th centuries. Mahabalipuram was the famous port city of Pallavas between 3rd - 7th century.

The Ajanta Caves are 30 (approximately) rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra state of India.

The Ellora caves were patronized mainly by the Chalukya and the Rashtrakuta Dynasty rulers between the middle of sixth century and the eleventh century A.D. Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra are 28-30 rock-cut cave monuments created during the first century BC and 5th century AD, containing paintings and sculptures considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art.

The term Vedic literature means the four Vedas in their Samhita and the allied literature based on or derived from the Vedas. We classify the Vedic literature into the following categories: The four Vedas i.e. the Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva and their Samhitas. The Brahmanas attached to each Samhita.

Ptolemy: Written a geographical treatise on India