Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 13

The correct answer is A, Amber-Jaipur School. Gopal, Udai, Hukma and Jiwan were court painters of the Amber-Jaipur school, which grew first in the ateliers of Amber and then in the new capital after Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur in 1727. The school reached its height under Sawai Pratap Singh, whose karkhana employed dozens of artists; its best known master, Sahibram, painted life-size portraits, and Krishna subjects such as the Ragamala and Bhagavata sets were favourites. Very large paintings, life-size portraits and green and yellow backgrounds mark the style. Option B is wrong because the Bikaner school is identified with Ruknuddin, Shahdin and Ustad Ali Raza, artists trained in the Mughal manner. Option C is wrong because Jodhpur or Marwar painting is associated with Shivdas, Kishandas and Dalchand. Option D is wrong because the Mewar school of Udaipur is led by Sahibdin and Manohar, who painted the Rasikapriya and Ramayana series. Exam tip: Sahibram belongs to Jaipur, Sahibdin to Mewar.

The correct answer is A, Greece. The Gandhara School of Art, which grew in the north west around Taxila and Peshawar between the first and fifth centuries, was shaped by Greek or Hellenistic sculpture that had reached the region after Alexander's campaign and stayed on through the Indo Greek and Kushana rulers. That is why its Buddha figures have wavy hair, sharp features, a halo without decoration and heavy robes with deep folds, carved mostly in blue grey schist. The school also produced the first images of the Buddha in human form, alongside the Mathura school. Kanishka was its best known patron. B is wrong because Roman influence came later and in small measure, mainly through trade. C and D are wrong because Hungary and Belgium had no contact with ancient India. Exam tip: Gandhara Greek and grey schist, Mathura Indian and red sandstone, Amaravati white marble.

The correct answer is D, Chandela Dynasty. The Khajuraho temples in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh were built between about 950 and 1050 CE by the Chandela rulers of Bundelkhand, among them Yashovarman, who built the Lakshmana temple, and Dhanga and Vidyadhara, under whom the large Kandariya Mahadeva temple came up. About twenty five of the original eighty five temples survive, built in the Nagara style on high platforms with rising spires and famous carved figures, and the group has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. A is wrong because the Gurjara Pratiharas ruled from Kannauj and are linked with temples at Osian. B is wrong because the Rashtrakutas built the rock cut Kailasa temple at Ellora. C is wrong because the Palas of Bengal and Bihar built Buddhist monasteries such as Vikramshila. Exam tip: Khajuraho, Chandelas, Nagara style, Madhya Pradesh, World Heritage Site 1986.

The correct answer is B, Painting. Amritlal Vegad, born in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh in 1928, was a painter and collage artist who trained at Kala Bhavan in Santiniketan under Nandalal Bose, and later taught art in Jabalpur. He is remembered for collages made from torn pieces of coloured paper, and for the sketches and paintings with which he filled his Hindi travel writing on the Narmada, a river he walked along for thousands of kilometres. That is why Madhya Pradesh papers place him with the visual arts rather than the performing arts. Option A is wrong because he worked on flat surfaces in paper and colour, not in stone or metal. Option C is wrong because he was never a singer. Option D is wrong because he had no place in music; that misreading comes from grouping every artist under the performing arts. Exam tip: Vegad, Jabalpur, painting and collage, Narmada travelogues in Hindi.

The correct answer is D, 1575. The Buland Darwaza, the lofty gateway on the south side of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, was raised by Akbar in 1575 to mark his conquest of Gujarat. It is built of red sandstone with white and black marble inlay, stands about 54 metres above the ground and is reached by a long flight of steps, which makes it one of the tallest gateways in the world. An inscription on it carries the saying that the world is a bridge, to be passed over and not built upon.

Option A, 1502, falls before the Mughals reached India at all. Option B, 1526, is the year of the first battle of Panipat, when Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, so it belongs to the founding of the empire, not to Akbar. Option C, 1534, falls in the reign of Humayun. Only 1575 fits Akbar and the Gujarat campaign.

The correct answer is D, Mallika Sarabhai. She won the best actress award in 1975 for her role in the Gujarati film Meena Gurjari, early in a career that moved between cinema, theatre and dance. Trained by her mother Mrinalini Sarabhai in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, she is also known for playing Draupadi in Peter Brook's stage and screen production of The Mahabharata, and she runs the Darpana Academy in Ahmedabad. Option A is wrong because Sonal Mansingh is an Odissi and Bharatanatyam exponent honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, not a film actress. Option B is wrong because Sitara Devi was the Kathak dancer whom Rabindranath Tagore called Nritya Samragini, and her film work came in the 1940s. Option C is wrong because Shovana Narayan is a Kathak dancer who also served as an officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service. Exam tip: link Mallika Sarabhai with Darpana Academy and her mother Mrinalini Sarabhai.

The correct answer is C, Gujarat. Rani ki Vav stands at Patan on the bank of the Saraswati in Gujarat and was built in the eleventh century during the Solanki or Chaulukya period, by tradition as a memorial raised by Queen Udayamati. It is a seven-storeyed stepwell turned into an inverted temple, its walls carrying hundreds of sculptures, among them the ten incarnations of Vishnu. The monument appears on the reverse of the hundred rupee currency note.

Option A, Rajasthan, has famous stepwells such as Chand Baori at Abhaneri, but they are not inscribed. Option B, Madhya Pradesh, holds Khajuraho, Sanchi and Bhimbetka. Option D, Maharashtra, holds the cave sites and the Mumbai ensembles. Patan in Gujarat is the answer, and the state also holds Champaner Pavagadh, the Historic City of Ahmedabad and Dholavira.

The correct answer is A, Andhra Pradesh. Tholu Bommalata is the leather shadow puppet theatre of Andhra Pradesh.

The name means the dance of leather dolls. Puppets are cut from goat or deer hide, dyed on both sides so the colours glow when a lamp throws their shadow on a cloth screen, and worked from behind while singers and a harmonium and drums carry the story. The plays are drawn from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and often run through the night. India has four famous shadow puppet forms: Tholu Bommalata here, Togalu Gombeyaata in Karnataka, Ravanachhaya in Odisha and Tholpavakoothu in Kerala.

Option B is wrong because Karnataka's shadow form is Togalu Gombeyaata. Option C is wrong as Kerala has Tholpavakoothu, performed in Bhagavati temples. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra's puppet tradition is Kalasutri Bahulya, worked with strings.

Exam tip: leather shadow puppets - Andhra Pradesh; string puppets - Rajasthan's Kathputli.

The correct answer is D, 5. Early Indian thinkers held that everything in the world is made of five basic elements, the panchamahabhuta: earth, water, fire, air and space or ether. The idea runs through the Upanishads, the Samkhya school and Ayurveda, where each element is linked to one of the senses, space to hearing, air to touch, fire to sight, water to taste and earth to smell. Ayurveda builds its three doshas, vata, pitta and kapha, out of pairs of these elements, and the body is said to return to the five elements after death. A, B and C are wrong because two, four and three do not match this scheme. Four elements, leaving out space, belong to the Greek account of matter and to the Charvaka school in India, which accepted only what the senses could show. Exam tip: panchamahabhuta means five elements, prithvi, jal, agni, vayu and akash.

The correct answer is D, lotus. The star-shaped shrine of Gurudwara Shri Hemkund Sahib is built with a roof shaped like an upturned lotus, a flower that also appears in the story of the site. The gurudwara stands in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand at a height of over 4,600 metres, beside a glacial lake ringed by seven peaks called Sapt Shring. It is dedicated to Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, who describes the place in his composition Bachittar Natak, and the shrine stays open only from about May to October because of snow. Options A, B and C are wrong because the rose, the marigold and the sunflower have no place in the design of this gurudwara; the marigold is used in garlands and the other two are garden flowers. The lotus, on the other hand, is a standing symbol of purity in Indian religious architecture. Exam tip: Hemkund Sahib is in Uttarakhand, near the Valley of Flowers National Park.

The correct answer is D, Guler Paintings – Karnataka, because this pair is the wrong one. Guler painting belongs to Himachal Pradesh, not Karnataka. Guler, a small hill state in the Kangra valley, is where the Pahari school took its gentle new form in the eighteenth century under artists of the Seu family, and from there it grew into the famous Kangra style of soft lines and green hill landscapes. A is a correct pair, since Phad is the long cloth scroll painting of Rajasthan that tells the story of folk gods such as Pabuji and Devnarayan. B is a correct pair, as Saura painting is the wall art of the Saura tribe of Odisha, close in look to Warli. C is a correct pair, because the Bagh paintings are the cave murals near the Bagh caves in Madhya Pradesh. Exam tip: Guler and Kangra are both Pahari schools of Himachal Pradesh.

The correct answer is A, Kui. Kui is the language of the Kondh (Kandha) tribe of Odisha and is grouped with Telugu and Gondi in the south-central or south-eastern branch of the Dravidian family. It is spoken mainly in Kandhamal, Rayagada, Kalahandi, Koraput and Boudh districts, is written in the Odia script, and has a rich body of oral songs and folk tales. The Odisha cabinet cleared a proposal in July 2023 recommending that Kui be placed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, which began with fourteen languages in 1950 and now lists twenty-two, Odia among them. Option B is wrong because Malto is a North Dravidian language of the Rajmahal hills in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Option C is wrong because Tulu belongs to coastal Karnataka and Kasaragod in Kerala, and Karnataka has pressed its own case. Option D is wrong because Kodagu is spoken in the Kodagu district of Karnataka. Exam tip: Brahui, Kurukh and Malto are North Dravidian; Kui and Gondi sit with Telugu.

The correct answer is D, Jahangir. The Shalimar Bagh on the bank of the Dal lake in Srinagar was laid out by Jahangir in 1619 for his queen Nur Jahan. It is a Mughal garden in the charbagh plan, built in rising terraces fed by a central water channel, with pavilions and cascades, and it shows how far the Mughals carried the Persian idea of a garden as a picture of paradise. Jahangir loved Kashmir and the Nishat Bagh nearby belongs to the same period.

Option A, Azam Shah, was a son of Aurangzeb and is linked with the Bibi ka Maqbara at Aurangabad, not with Kashmir. Option B, Akbar, annexed Kashmir in 1586 and built the Hari Parbat fort wall there, but not this garden. Option C, Humayun, spent his reign in war and exile and left no garden of this kind. The Shalimar Bagh belongs to Jahangir.

The correct answer is D, Copper and Silver. The craftspersons of Bidar were famous for inlay work in copper and silver, and the craft took the name Bidri from the town.

Bidar is in present-day Karnataka and was the capital of the Bahmani rulers and later of the Barid Shahi dynasty. In Bidriware the artisan casts an article from an alloy of zinc and copper, cuts a design into the blackened surface and presses pure silver wire or sheet into the grooves, so the bright pattern stands out against the dark body. Flower, vine and geometric patterns are the usual designs. Bidriware carries a Geographical Indication tag.

A is wrong: gold and bronze are not the metals of Bidri work. B is wrong: bronze is not inlaid in this craft. C is wrong: gold has no part in it, though copper does.

Exam tip: Bidri - Bidar in Karnataka, zinc-copper body with silver inlay, GI tagged.

The correct answer is B, Telangana. The Ramappa temple stands at Palampet in the Mulugu district of Telangana. It was built in the early thirteenth century under the Kakatiya rulers of Warangal by their general Recharla Rudra, and is named after its sculptor Ramappa, a rare case of a temple carrying its craftsman's name. It is famous for bracket figures of dancers and musicians carved in polished black basalt and for light floating bricks used in the tower.

Option A, Karnataka, holds Hampi, Pattadakal and the Hoysala ensembles at Belur, Halebid and Somanathapura. Option C, Andhra Pradesh, was part of the Kakatiya domain historically but Palampet lies in Telangana after the state was formed. Option D, Tamil Nadu, holds Mahabalipuram and the Great Living Chola Temples, a different dynasty and a different style.

The correct answer is B, Abhaya Mudra. Early Mathura Buddhas show the right hand raised with the palm facing out, the gesture that says "fear not". The Mathura School flourished under the Kushanas in the first centuries CE, at the same time as the Gandhara school of the north-west. Mathura sculptors worked in the local spotted red sandstone and gave the Buddha a round smiling face, a shaven head with a spiral top-knot and a strong, fleshy body, a style that was wholly Indian. The seated Buddha from the Katra mound, now in the Mathura Museum, is a well-known example with the right hand in abhaya. Option A is wrong because the dhyana mudra of meditation, with hands resting in the lap, is typical of Gandhara images. Option C is wrong because the dharmachakra mudra of teaching became famous later, as in the Gupta-period Buddha of Sarnath. Option D is wrong because the varada mudra of giving, with the palm lowered, is seen more often in later images. Exam tip: Mathura means red sandstone and abhaya; Gandhara means grey schist and dhyana.

The correct answer is B, Alauddin Khalji. The Alai Darwaza was added in 1311 as the southern gateway to the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutub complex at Delhi. It is the first surviving building in India in which the arch and the dome are true, that is, built of wedge shaped stones that carry the load sideways, instead of being corbelled by laying flat stones one over another. Its red sandstone walls are inlaid with white marble and carry lotus bud fringes on the arches.

Option A, Iltutmish, belongs to the earlier Slave dynasty and built his own tomb and the upper storeys of the Qutub Minar, still in the corbelled manner. Option C, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, came much later and is known for Firozabad, Hauz Khas and the repair of the Qutub Minar. Option D, Sikandar Lodi, is associated with the double dome and with Agra as a capital. Only Alauddin Khalji fits the date and the gateway.

The correct answer is C, Ahmedabad. The Historic City of Ahmedabad in Gujarat, founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah in the fifteenth century on the eastern bank of the Sabarmati, was inscribed in 2017 and became the first city in India to enter the World Heritage List as a whole city. Its walled town is valued for the dense pols or traditional neighbourhoods, wooden houses, mosques and tombs of the Sultanate period and the bird feeders called chabutaras.

Option A, Jaipur, is a genuine World Heritage City but was inscribed two years later, in 2019, so it is the second and the usual trap. Option B, Varanasi, one of the oldest living cities in the world, is not inscribed. Option D, Hyderabad, has monuments such as the Charminar and Golconda on India's Tentative List but has not been inscribed.

The correct answer is B, Humayun tomb at Delhi. Built between 1565 and 1572 by his widow Hamida Banu Begum and designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas, it is the first tomb in India set in the middle of a charbagh, a square garden cut into four quarters by walkways and water channels. It also brought the high arched entrance, the double dome and the red sandstone with marble facing that the later Mughals repeated. It was the first Indian building of its kind to be placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1993.

Option A, the tomb of Sher Shah Suri, is a magnificent octagonal tomb but it stands on a terrace in the middle of a lake, not a charbagh. Option C, the tomb of Akbar at Sikandra, is later and is indeed in a garden, but it follows Humayun tomb. Option D, the Bibi ka Maqbara, is from the reign of Aurangzeb and is a copy of the Taj.

The correct answer is A, Madhya Pradesh. The Bhimbetka rock shelters lie in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, in the foothills of the Vindhyan range south of Bhopal, and were inscribed in 2003. They hold hundreds of shelters whose walls were painted from the Mesolithic period onward, with hunting scenes, animals, dancers and later horse riders, giving the earliest evidence of human life in this part of the subcontinent. The site was brought to scholarly notice by V. S. Wakankar.

Option B, Chhattisgarh, has rock art at sites such as Singanpur but none inscribed. Option C, Odisha, holds the Sun Temple at Konark. Option D, Jharkhand, has no World Heritage Site. Madhya Pradesh is a rich state for this chapter, with Khajuraho, Sanchi and Bhimbetka all on the list.