Indian History GK Questions with Answers – Page 54

The correct answer is A, polaj, the best land, under the plough every season and assessed at the full rate of about one-third of the average produce.

Raising the sawar rank of a favoured noble meant raising his zat as well, which disturbed the order of precedence and cost the treasury more in personal pay.

Mansabdars were paid for the troopers they maintained, and the standing temptation was to hire horses and men for the day of inspection and send them away afterwards.

Under his settlement the average produce and the average price of the previous ten years were calculated for every crop in every locality, the demand was fixed at about one-third of that average produce and stated in cash per bigha, and land was measured with the bamboo jarib and the…

The zat number fixed the salary of the holder and his place in the order of precedence at court, while the sawar number fixed the contingent of cavalry he had to keep ready for the emperor.

The Ain-i-Akbari was written by Abul Fazl, the courtier and friend of Akbar, and it forms the third volume of the Akbarnama; it is an administrative gazetteer, listing departments and officers, the subas with their sarkars and parganas, measured areas, revenue rates, prices and wages, which is why historians use…

The Mir Bakhshi was the head of the military establishment: he kept the muster rolls of the mansabdars, verified the horses and men at inspection, recommended candidates for rank and countersigned their pay orders, and the news writers and intelligence reporters of the provinces also sent their reports through his…

A brahmadeya was land or a whole village granted to brahmanas, usually free of several taxes, and its assembly of adult male brahmana landholders was the sabha or mahasabha, which worked through committees called variyams; the Uttaramerur inscriptions describe such a sabha.

The Kallanai, known in English as the Grand Anicut, is a dam built across the Kaveri to divert water into the delta channels, and tradition assigns it to Karikala, a king of the early Cholas of the Sangam age who ruled from Uraiyur.

Ayyavole, also called the Five Hundred of Ayyavole, along with Manigramam and Nanadesi, were associations of traders who handled inland and overseas commerce, financed temples, maintained their own guards and left inscriptions in South India and as far away as Sumatra.

Jayangondar, a court poet of Kulottunga I, composed the Kalingattuparani, a war poem in the parani form that describes the Chola campaign against Kalinga.

Parantaka I had extended Chola power over the Pandya country and taken the title Maduraikonda, but his advance was stopped at Takkolam, in present-day Tamil Nadu, where the Rashtrakuta king Krishna III defeated the Chola army and the crown prince Rajaditya was killed in the fighting.

In this method, called cire perdue, the image is first modelled in wax, then covered with clay to form a mould; the wax is melted and drained out, molten metal is poured into the hollow, and the clay is broken away to reveal a single solid image that cannot be…

The Chola empire was divided into mandalams, the largest provinces, which were frequently placed under royal princes or senior officers.

The inscriptions on the temple walls at Uttaramerur in Tamil Nadu, of the tenth century, set out in detail how the sabha of that brahmadeya village chose the members of its committees: who was qualified by landholding, house, learning and age, who was disqualified, and how name-tickets were drawn from…

Rajendra I, who ruled from 1014 to 1044, sent a fleet across the Bay of Bengal against the Sailendra kingdom of Srivijaya, in the Malay peninsula and Sumatra, and defeated its ruler Sangrama Vijayottunga Varman.

Vijayalaya, about the middle of the ninth century, took Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyar chiefs who held the Kaveri delta as subordinates of the Pallavas, and from that base the imperial Chola line grew.

The temple at Thanjavur, known both as the Rajarajesvara temple after its builder and as the Brihadisvara temple, was completed in 1010 during the reign of Rajaraja I. Its vimana is one of the tallest of any medieval Indian temple and its walls carry long inscriptions recording grants, servants and…

Rajaraja I, who ruled from 985 to 1014, is regarded as the most powerful Chola ruler.

He is credited with the Samaranganasutradhara on architecture and mechanics and the Saraswatikanthabharana on poetics, and with the Bhojashala at Dhar and the great lake and Shiva temple at Bhojpur.