Indian History GK Questions with Answers – Page 86

The Prayag Prashasti, also called the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, is a Sanskrit eulogy of the Gupta emperor Samudragupta (about 335 to 375 CE) composed by his court poet and minister Harishena, who held the titles sandhivigrahika (minister of peace and war) and kumaramatya.

Buddhist texts list sixteen mahajanapadas of the sixth century BCE, and Gandhara, in the north-west covering the Peshawar and Rawalpindi region, had its capital at Taxila (Takshashila), near present-day Islamabad in Pakistan.

The Harappan script uses about four hundred picture-like signs, and it was written in the boustrophedon style, that is from right to left in the first line and then from left to right in the next, turning like an ox ploughing a field.

Dholavira stands on Khadir island in the Rann of Kutch. Unlike the usual two-part Harappan town, it is divided into three: a citadel, a middle town and a lower town, all enclosed by stone walls.

The seal shows a figure seated in a yogic posture with horns on its head and animals around it, usually described as an elephant, a tiger, a rhinoceros and a buffalo, with deer below the seat.

Daimabad lies on the Pravara, a tributary of the Godavari, in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, and it marks the southern limit of the Harappan world.

The Harappan Civilisation is a Bronze Age culture, and no iron object has been recovered from any of its levels.

Mesopotamian texts list Meluha among the lands that sent ships carrying carnelian beads, ivory, timber and copper, and the goods named there match what Harappan sites produced.

A Harappan burnt brick was four units long, two units broad and one unit thick, and the same proportion turns up at sites hundreds of kilometres apart.

Kalibangan stands on the dry bed of the Ghaggar in the Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. A field there, belonging to the pre-Harappan level, carries two sets of furrows crossing each other at right angles, showing that two crops were grown in the same plot at the same time.

He dug at Harappa on the bank of the Ravi in 1921, and the finds from that season identified a wholly unknown urban culture, which was named after the site.

Lothal lies on the Bhogava, a tributary of the Sabarmati in Gujarat, and its eastern side holds a large brick basin connected to the river by a channel.

The Great Bath stands in the citadel of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh. It is a brick tank about twelve metres long and seven metres wide, with flights of steps at two ends, small rooms around it and a layer of natural tar below the floor to stop water from seeping away.

Maharshi Karve, a social reformer from Maharashtra, founded India's first women's university at Pune in 1916, inspired by the Japan Women's University.

Annie Besant, an Irish-born theosophist, was the first woman to preside over the Indian National Congress, at its Calcutta session in 1917.

Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur founded the Mughal Empire in India after defeating Ibrahim Lodi in the First Battle of Panipat on 21 April 1526, and he ruled till his death in 1530.

Bindusara was the son of Chandragupta Maurya and became the second ruler of the Mauryan Empire in about 297 BCE, ruling till about 273 BCE.

On 21 April 1526 Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the last Sultan of Delhi, at Panipat in present-day Haryana, and this victory ended the Delhi Sultanate and started Mughal rule in India.

Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General from 1786 to 1793, introduced the Permanent Settlement on 22 March 1793 in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

This sentence comes from the NCERT Class 8 history chapter 'From Trade to Territory'. Lord Hastings, Governor-General from 1813 to 1823, declared that the Company's authority was paramount, so it could annex or threaten any Indian state to protect its interests.