Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 32

The correct answer is A, Modern or creative dance. Uday Shankar was not a classical dancer in the strict sense; he created a new idiom by blending Indian movement with Western stagecraft, and he is regarded as the pioneer of modern or creative dance in India, having performed with the ballerina Anna Pavlova early in his career. Option B is wrong because the revival of Bharatanatyam in the modern concert hall is associated with Rukmini Devi Arundale and Balasaraswati. Option C is wrong because the revival of Kathakali is associated with Kerala Kalamandalam, founded by Vallathol Narayana Menon. Option D is wrong because the reconstruction of Odissi is associated with Kelucharan Mohapatra and Pankaj Charan Das. His name is also set against those of his contemporaries in the classical revival, so the word modern or creative in the option is the signal to look for.

The correct answer is D, New Delhi. The institution stands at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi, the house where Jawaharlal Nehru lived as Prime Minister for sixteen years, and it was opened to the public in 1964 after his death. It holds a museum on his life, a research library on modern Indian history with private papers and old newspapers, and a planetarium added in 1984. It works under the Ministry of Culture and has since been renamed the Prime Ministers' Museum and Library. The name Teen Murti comes from the three-soldier memorial in the circle outside. A is wrong because Kolkata has the Victoria Memorial and the National Library. B is wrong because Prayagraj has Anand Bhawan, the Nehru family home turned museum. C is wrong because Mumbai has the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya. Exam tip: pair Teen Murti Bhavan with Nehru and Anand Bhawan with Prayagraj.

The correct answer is B, Rajasthan. Kota Doria is woven at Kaithoon and the villages near Kota in Rajasthan, where cotton and silk yarns are alternated to make the small square checks called khat, giving a cloth so light and open that it suits the desert summer. Option A is wrong because the light sarees of Madhya Pradesh are Chanderi and Maheshwari, which are glossy and plain rather than a visible mesh of checks. Option C is wrong because Uttar Pradesh is known for Banarasi brocade and for Chikankari embroidery. Option D is wrong because Haryana has no handloom saree of this name, though it shares the Phulkari tradition of the north west. The pair to hold is Kota with Doria. The same cloth is also called Kota Masuria, and it carries a geographical indication tag of its own.

The correct answer is A, Chhattisgarh. In Pandwani a single performer tells the story of the Pandavas in song and speech, holding a tambura and acting out the scenes, and Teejan Bai, who received the Padma Vibhushan, carried the form from her village to audiences across the world. Option B, Odisha, has Dalkhai, the harvest song of the western districts, and Chaiti Ghoda, in which a dummy horse is used. Option C, Jharkhand, has Jhumar, Domkach and Paiki, which accompany dance more than narration. Option D, Telangana, does have narrative traditions, namely Burrakatha and Oggu Katha, which makes it a fair distractor; but those are Telugu forms, and the Mahabharata narration in the Chhattisgarhi language is Pandwani. Pandwani is sung in two styles, the Vedamati in which the singer stays seated and the Kapalik in which the singer rises and acts the scenes.

The correct answer is B, Sarnath. After attaining enlightenment the Buddha walked to the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and preached to his first five disciples; the event is called the Dhammachakkappavattana, the turning of the wheel of law. Sarnath also holds the Dhamek Stupa and the Chaukhandi Stupa, and the Lion Capital of Ashoka that became the State Emblem of India was found there. Option A, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, is where he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and where the Mahabodhi Temple stands. Option C, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, is where he died, an event called the mahaparinirvana. Option D, Vaishali in Bihar, is where he preached his last sermon and where the second Buddhist council met, but not the first sermon.

The correct answer is D, Chhau. Chhau was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. It is a masked dance-drama of eastern India with three styles named after their homes: Seraikella in Jharkhand and Purulia in West Bengal, where masks are worn, and Mayurbhanj in Odisha, where the dancers perform without masks. The form grew out of martial training, so its steps imitate combat and the movements of birds and animals, while its stories come from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and local legend. It is danced at the spring festival of Chaitra Parva to the beat of the dhol and the dhumsa. A is wrong because Fugdi is a women's folk dance of Goa. B is wrong because Jhoomar belongs to Punjab. C is wrong because Dalkhai is a folk dance of western Odisha. Exam tip: Indian entries on the UNESCO list include Chhau (2010), Ramlila, Kutiyattam, Vedic chanting and Sankirtana.

The correct answer is A, Odisha. The Jagannath Temple stands at Puri on the Odisha coast and was built in the twelfth century by Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. Its Rath Yatra takes out three chariots, Nandighosa for Jagannath, Taladhwaja for Balabhadra and Darpadalana for Subhadra, and Puri is also one of the four Char Dham attributed to Adi Shankaracharya. Option B, West Bengal, is wrong; its best known shrines are Kalighat and the Dakshineswar temple at Kolkata, not a Jagannath temple of this standing. Option C, Bihar, is wrong because its great pilgrimage centre is Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Option D, Jharkhand, is wrong although it does hold the Baidyanath Jyotirlinga at Deoghar; candidates who remember only that the temple lies in eastern India often pick one of these three neighbours.

The correct answer is B, both statements are true, but B is not the correct explanation of A. Chola temples such as the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, built by Rajaraja I, were far more than places of worship. They held land and villages, employed priests, garland makers, cooks, dancers and musicians, ran schools and craft workshops, and even lent money, so the religious, social and cultural life of the region gathered around them. Chola bronzes were cast by the lost wax method and mostly show deities such as Nataraja, Vishnu and Parvati, while a few portray donors and devotees, including saints and members of the royal family. Both statements are correct facts, but the subject matter of the bronzes does not explain why the temples were social centres; their land, wealth and grants do. So option A is wrong. Option C is wrong because Statement B is true, and option D is wrong because Statement A is true. Exam tip: Brihadisvara temple, Thanjavur, Rajaraja I; Chola bronzes by the lost wax method, Nataraja the most famous.

The correct answer is B, Mohiniyattam. Kalamandalam Kalyanikutty Amma is often described as the mother of Mohiniyattam, because she gathered and set in order the movements and repertoire of this graceful dance of Kerala, which is performed by women and belongs to the lasya or gentle style. Option A is wrong because Kathakali, the other great form of Kerala, is a vigorous story-play with elaborate make-up, and its gurus are Kunchu Kurup, Ramankutty Nair and Kalamandalam Gopi. Option C is wrong because Bharatanatyam belongs to Tamil Nadu. Option D is wrong because Odissi belongs to Odisha. The point to carry away is that Kerala has two of the eight classical forms, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam, and questions often turn on telling them apart. Kathakali is danced chiefly by men in heavy costume while Mohiniyattam is danced by women in plain white and gold, and that contrast alone answers most questions on the pair.

The correct answer is C, Ujjayi pranayama. In Ujjayi the throat is slightly narrowed while breathing through the nose, so the air makes a soft continuous hiss that is commonly compared with the sound of the sea or of waves; for that reason it is called the ocean breath, and the name itself means victorious. Option A is wrong because Kapalbhati is a rapid cleansing practice in which the exhalation is forced out by drawing in the abdomen, and its sound is a series of sharp puffs, not a steady murmur. Option B is wrong because Shitali is a cooling practice in which the breath is drawn in through a rolled tongue, and its characteristic feature is coolness rather than sound. Option D is wrong because dirgha simply means long or deep breathing and carries no such sound.

The correct answer is A, 7 August. The date was chosen because the Swadeshi Movement was launched at the Calcutta Town Hall on 7 August 1905, calling on Indians to use cloth made in their own country, and the first National Handloom Day was observed at Chennai in 2015 to honour handloom weavers. Option B is wrong because 15 July is observed as World Youth Skills Day, which has no connection with handlooms. Option C is wrong because 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti, and although Gandhi made khadi a symbol of the freedom movement, the handloom day is not kept on his birthday. Option D is wrong because 26 November is Constitution Day. Link the day to the Swadeshi call of 1905. The observance is conducted every year by the Ministry of Textiles, which works for handloom weavers across the states.

The correct answer is B, France. Le Corbusier is counted as a French architect. He was born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret in Switzerland in 1887, settled in Paris, took French citizenship in 1930 and worked from France for the rest of his life. Jawaharlal Nehru brought him to India to plan Chandigarh, the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana, after the first planner Albert Mayer and his architect Matthew Nowicki left the project. Le Corbusier laid the city out in numbered sectors on a grid and designed the Capitol Complex in Sector 1 — the High Court, the Secretariat, the Legislative Assembly and the Open Hand monument — which UNESCO added to its World Heritage list in 2016. Option A is wrong because Germany is the home of the Bauhaus school and Walter Gropius, not of Le Corbusier. Option C is wrong because Italy is linked with Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Palladio. Option D is wrong because Spain is known for Antoni Gaudí of Barcelona. Exam tip: Chandigarh — Le Corbusier; New Delhi — Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.

The correct answer is B, Ashoka. The core of the Great Stupa at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, also called Stupa Number One, was raised in the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the third century before the common era; the Shungas later enlarged the dome and added the railing, and the four carved gateways or toranas were added in the Satavahana period. Option A, Chandragupta Maurya, was Ashoka's grandfather and no building at Sanchi is attributed to him. Option C, Kanishka, was the Kushana ruler under whom the Gandhara and Mathura schools flourished and the fourth Buddhist council was held, far from Sanchi. Option D, Harshavardhana, ruled in the seventh century of the common era, nearly a thousand years later. Remember that Sanchi shows the Buddha only through symbols, never as a human figure.

The correct answer is B, All-India War Memorial. India Gate was built as the All-India War Memorial to honour soldiers of the British Indian Army who died in the First World War and in the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, the chief architect of New Delhi. The Duke of Connaught laid its foundation stone in 1921, and it was completed in 1931. The names of thousands of soldiers are carved on its walls. In 1972, after the 1971 war, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was added beneath the arch. Option A is wrong because the Afghan war is only one of the wars it remembers, and that was never its name. Option C is wrong because 'Archway of Delhi' is just a description, not an official name. Option D is wrong because the memorial honours the Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, not only British soldiers. Exam tip: India Gate = All-India War Memorial, designed by Lutyens, built 1921–1931.

The correct answer is B, Rajaraja I. The Brihadisvara or Rajarajesvaram temple at Thanjavur was completed about 1010 CE by the Chola king Rajaraja I, and it is the oldest of the three shrines inscribed by UNESCO as the Great Living Chola Temples. Its towering vimana makes it the classic example of mature Dravida architecture. Option A, Rajendra I, is the most tempting distractor because he was Rajaraja's son and did build a comparable temple, but his was the Brihadisvara at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the third site in the same World Heritage group. Option C, Narasimhavarman II or Rajasimha, is wrong; he was a Pallava and is remembered for the Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram and the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram. Option D, Krishna I, is wrong because this Rashtrakuta king had the rock-cut Kailasa temple carved at Ellora.

The correct answer is D, 72. The melakarta ragas are the parent scales of Carnatic music, each of them using all seven notes in both ascent and descent. The scheme that fixes their number at seventy-two comes from Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika, and every other Carnatic raga is treated as a janya, or derived, raga of one of these parents.

Option A, 10, is the number of thaats into which Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande grouped the ragas of Hindustani music, so it belongs to the other system. Option B, 22, is the number of shrutis or microtones into which the older theory divided the octave. Option C, 32, matches nothing in this classification and is placed there only as a distractor. The examiner's favourite trick here is to swap the number of thaats with the number of melakartas, so remember the pair together: ten thaats in the north, seventy-two melakartas in the south.

The correct answer is A, Maharashtra. The Paithani takes its name from Paithan on the Godavari, and it is also woven at Yeola in the Nashik district. It is a silk brocade in which the border and the pallu are made by the tapestry technique, with peacocks, lotuses and vines in gold thread, and the design shows on both sides. Option B is wrong because the handloom saree of Kerala is the kasavu, plain off white cotton with a gold border. Option C is wrong because West Bengal gives Baluchari, Jamdani and tant sarees. Option D is wrong because Karnataka weaves Mysore crepe silk and the Ilkal saree with its red pallu. Hold the pair Paithan with Paithani and the peacock motif. For revision, hold Maharashtra with Paithani, Gujarat with Patola and Madhya Pradesh with Chanderi and Maheshwari.

The correct answer is A, grey schist. The Gandhara school worked in the north-west, around Taxila and Peshawar, and used the bluish-grey schist of that region; its figures show Greco-Roman influence in the wavy hair, the heavy folds of the drapery and the muscular, realistic modelling. Option B, red sandstone, was the material of the Mathura school, which quarried the spotted red stone of Sikri near Mathura and produced robust indigenous figures of the Buddha, Jain tirthankaras and Hindu gods. Option C, white marble, is a later material associated with Jain temples such as Dilwara, while the Amaravati school of the Krishna valley used white limestone. Option D, black basalt, belongs mainly to the Pala sculpture of Bengal and Bihar. Gandhara and Mathura both flourished under the Kushanas and are credited with the first images of the Buddha in human form.

The correct answer is D, Kedarnath. The four Char Dham placed in the four directions are Badrinath in the north, Dwarka in the west, Puri in the east and Rameswaram in the south, so Kedarnath does not belong to this set. Kedarnath is instead one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and one of the four shrines of the Chota Char Dham of Uttarakhand, along with Yamunotri, Gangotri and Badrinath, which is where the confusion arises. Options A, B and C are all genuine members of the pan-India circuit: Badrinath on the Alaknanda in Uttarakhand, Dwarka on the Gujarat coast and the Jagannath temple at Puri in Odisha. The trap in this question is the overlap of the two circuits, because Badrinath appears in both, so learn the southern member Rameswaram as the marker of the national Char Dham.

The correct answer is B, Maharashtra. The twenty-nine Ajanta caves are cut into a horseshoe-shaped cliff above the Waghora stream in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra and are a World Heritage Site. The earlier caves are Hinayana chaityas and viharas of the Satavahana age, and the later Mahayana caves of the Vakataka age carry the paintings of Padmapani and Vajrapani and scenes from the Jataka stories. Option A, Madhya Pradesh, has Sanchi, Bharhut and the painted Bagh caves, which are often confused with Ajanta. Option C, Karnataka, has the Jain centre of Shravanabelagola and the Badami caves. Option D, Odisha, has the Jain caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri and the Buddhist Diamond Triangle of Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri. Ellora, with its Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves, is in Maharashtra as well.