Indian History GK Questions with Answers – Page 79

Mahavira attained nirvana, or salvation, at Pavapuri in the Nalanda district of Bihar, at the age of 72. He was the twenty-fourth and last Tirthankara of Jainism, born at Kundagrama near Vaishali to Siddhartha and Trishala.

Bimbisara belonged to the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha, not to the Mauryas. He ruled from Rajagriha in the sixth century BC, was a contemporary of the Buddha and Mahavira, and enlarged Magadha through marriage alliances and by annexing Anga.

The First Buddhist Council was held under the patronage of Ajatashatru, the Haryanka ruler of Magadha. It met at Rajgir, in the Sattapanni cave, soon after the Buddha's death, and was presided over by Mahakassapa.

The Rig Veda is the oldest of the four Vedas, so it describes the earliest Vedic culture. It is a collection of 1,028 hymns arranged in ten books called mandalas, composed in the land of the seven rivers in the north-west.

The Third Anglo-Maratha War, fought in 1817-18 under Lord Hastings, ended Maratha power. Peshwa Baji Rao II was beaten at Khadki, Koregaon and Ashti, the office of Peshwa was abolished, and his lands around Poona were taken over and joined to the Bombay Presidency.

Persian was the language of the Mughal court and of its records, and Akbar made it the official language of administration in 1582.

The Bijolia rock inscription, at Bijolia in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, is dated to 1170 CE, in the reign of Someshvara, and it sets out the family line of the Chahamanas, the Chauhans of Shakambhari.

Brihadratha was the last Mauryan emperor, and about 185 BCE his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Shunga killed him while the army was being reviewed, ending the dynasty Chandragupta Maurya had founded around 322 BCE.

Jain tradition places the birth of Rishabhanatha, the first Tirthankara, and of Abhinandananatha, the fourth, at Ayodhya in present-day Uttar Pradesh.

Ropar, now Rupnagar in Punjab, stands on the Sutlej, not on the Indus. It was excavated by Y.D.

Rupnath lies in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh, not in Karnataka, and it bears Minor Rock Edict I. Karnataka holds the largest cluster of Ashokan Minor Rock Edicts, in the Raichur, Ballari and Chitradurga belt — at Maski, Gavimath, Palkigundu, Brahmagiri, Siddapura, Jatinga-Rameshwara, Nittur and Udegolam.

Charaka is the physician of ancient India whose name is attached to the Charaka Samhita, the great text on medicine, and tradition makes him a court physician of the Kushana king Kanishka.

In Rock Edict XIII, Ashoka states that the country of the Kalingas was conquered eight years after his consecration as king.

The third book of the Rigveda holds a hymn in which the sage Vishvamitra speaks with two rivers, Vipasha and Shutudri, and asks them to run low so that his party may cross with its wagons.

Rakhigarhi lies in Hisar district of Haryana, on the dry bed of the Ghaggar river. It is the largest Harappan site found in India, spread over several mounds, and excavations there have given up planned streets, brick drains, a granary area, seals and terracotta toys.

The Hundred Years' War was fought between England and France from 1337 to 1453, so it actually ran for 116 years with long truces in between.

Chandragupta II extended Gupta rule to Gujarat around 390 AD by defeating the Western Kshatrapas, the Saka rulers of Malwa, Gujarat and Kathiawar.

Triratna means the three jewels in which a Buddhist takes refuge. Buddha is the enlightened teacher, Dhamma is his teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, and Sangha is the order of monks and nuns that carries the teaching forward.

The Boston Tea Party took place on 16 December 1773, when American colonists threw British tea into Boston harbour. The protest was against the Tea Act of 1773, which let the East India Company sell tea in the colonies without paying the usual duties and undercut local merchants.

The Dhammapada gathers the Buddha's teaching into 423 short verses arranged in 26 chapters, and because it holds the heart of the doctrine in verses anyone can remember, it is often called the Gita of Buddhism.