Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 33

The correct answer is A, Chavundaraya. The Gommateshwara image of the Jain saint Bahubali at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, about fifty-seven feet high and cut from a single block of granite on the Vindhyagiri hill, was raised by Chavundaraya, a minister and general of the Western Ganga kingdom. The Mahamastakabhisheka, the ceremonial anointing of the statue, is held there once in twelve years. Option B, Vimal Shah, built the Vimal Vasahi temple of Adinath at Dilwara on Mount Abu. Option C, Tejpal, along with his brother Vastupala, built the Luna Vasahi temple of Neminath at the same place. Option D, Kharavela, was the Chedi king of Kalinga who cut the Jain caves of Udayagiri in Odisha and left the Hathigumpha inscription. All four are Jain patrons, which is why the options are set together.

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 A, Nilachal hill. The Kamakhya Temple rises on the Nilachal or Nilachala hill in Guwahati, Assam, overlooking the Brahmaputra, and its annual Ambubachi Mela draws pilgrims from across eastern India. Option B, the Trikuta hills, is wrong because they hold the cave shrine of Vaishno Devi near Katra in Jammu and Kashmir, which is also a goddess shrine and therefore the likeliest wrong choice. Option C, Girnar, is wrong; this hill near Junagadh in Gujarat is known for its Jain temples and for the rock on which Ashoka's edicts were engraved. Option D, Shatrunjaya, is wrong because that hill at Palitana in Gujarat carries hundreds of Jain temples. Remember Nilachal with Kamakhya and Trikuta with Vaishno Devi as a pair of contrasts.

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, Mount Abu. The Dilwara group of five marble temples stands on Mount Abu in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan, in the Aravalli range, and belongs to the Solanki period; the Vimal Vasahi is dedicated to Adinath and the Luna Vasahi to Neminath, and both are famous for ceilings and pillars carved as fine as lace. Option A, Ranakpur, is also in Rajasthan and has the four-faced or Chaumukha temple of Adinath with its forest of carved pillars, but it is a separate site. Option C, Palitana on the Shatrunjaya hills in Gujarat, holds the largest cluster of Jain temples in India. Option D, Girnar near Junagadh in Gujarat, is another major Jain tirtha. Learning Dilwara and Ranakpur with Rajasthan and Palitana and Girnar with Gujarat settles most questions of this kind.

The correct answer is A, Bharata. The Natya Shastra describes the playhouse, the actor's gestures, music, dance and the theory of rasa, the sentiment a performance raises in the spectator, and it is the foundation of every classical form of Indian theatre and dance. Option B is wrong because Abhinavagupta was a later commentator from Kashmir who wrote the Abhinavabharati on this very text, but not the text itself. Option C is wrong because Bhasa was a dramatist, the author of Swapnavasavadattam, and not a theorist. Option D is wrong because Panini wrote the Ashtadhyayi on Sanskrit grammar. Examiners often pair the treatise with the commentator, so keep Bharata for the work and Abhinavagupta for the commentary. The text lists eight rasas, and a ninth, shanta or tranquillity, was added by later writers on the subject.

The correct answer is B, Narasimhadeva I. The Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, conceived as the chariot of the sun god with carved wheels and horses, was raised in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, and it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1984. Option A, Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva, is wrong but is the hardest distractor because he belonged to the same dynasty and built the Jagannath temple at Puri a century earlier. Option C, Kapilendra Deva, is wrong; he founded the later Gajapati dynasty of Odisha and is not credited with Konark. Option D, Bhima I, is wrong because this Solanki king of Gujarat is associated with the Sun Temple at Modhera, another sun shrine, which makes him a plausible but incorrect answer for anyone who matches only the deity rather than the region.

The correct answer is B, Mizoram. Inbuan is the belt wrestling of Mizoram, in which a wrestler grips a belt worn round the waist of the opponent and must lift him off the ground; kicking is not allowed and the knee may not be bent, and stepping outside the circle loses the bout. Option A is wrong because Meghalaya is known for archery contests but not for Inbuan. Option C is wrong; Tripura has its own folk games yet Inbuan is not among them. Option D is wrong, and it is the sharpest distractor, because Manipur has a long wrestling tradition of its own called Mukna, and candidates who remember only that the north east is involved often choose Manipur. Mizoram also gives Insuknawr, the rod push contest, so keep the two Mizo entries together.

The correct answer is B, Udayagiri caves, Odisha. The Hathigumpha or elephant cave at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar carries the long Prakrit inscription of Kharavela, the Chedi or Mahameghavahana king of Kalinga, which records his campaigns and his patronage of Jainism; Udayagiri and the neighbouring Khandagiri form a Jain cave group. Option A, the Barabar caves in Bihar, are the oldest rock-cut caves in India, of the Mauryan period, and carry inscriptions of Ashoka and Dasharatha, not of Kharavela. Option C, the Ellora caves in Maharashtra, hold Buddhist, Hindu and Jain groups, the Jain caves being numbers 30 to 34. Option D, Sittanavasal in Tamil Nadu, is a Jain cave known for its early paintings. Keep Hathigumpha with Kharavela and Kalinga, just as the Junagadh rock carries both Ashoka and Rudradaman.

The correct answer is B, Karle. The chaitya at Karle, near Lonavala in Maharashtra, is the largest such hall in the country: an apsidal prayer chamber with a high barrel-vaulted roof still carrying its wooden ribs, a screen wall pierced by a great horseshoe window, a rock-cut stupa at the far end and rows of pillars whose capitals show elephants with riders. It was excavated in the Satavahana period beside a trade route through the Western Ghats. Option A is wrong because Bhaja, though older and important as an early chaitya, is much smaller. Option C is wrong because Kanheri near Mumbai is famous for the sheer number of its excavations rather than for the size of any one hall. Option D is wrong because Pitalkhora is an early but modest group. Merchants and guilds paid for these caves, which is why they line the old trade passes.

The correct answer is C, Rajasthan. The Dilwara group of five Jain temples stands at Mount Abu in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan and was built in the Solanki period, Vimal Vasahi being dedicated to Adinath and Luna Vasahi to Neminath; the ceilings and pillars are the finest marble work of Jain architecture in India. Option A, Gujarat, is wrong although it is the most tempting answer, since Gujarat holds the Jain hill of Shatrunjaya at Palitana and the Girnar temples, and the Solanki rulers were based there. Option B, Madhya Pradesh, is wrong; its famous group is the Nagara-style temples of Khajuraho, which include Jain shrines but are not Dilwara. Option D, Karnataka, is wrong because its great Jain centre is Shravanabelagola with the Gommateshwara statue.

The correct answer is B, the ektara. The name means one string, and the instrument is a single string stretched over a gourd with a bamboo neck that the player presses to change the pitch; the Baul holds it in one hand while singing and dancing, often with a small drum called duggi tied at the waist. Option A, the sarangi, is a bowed instrument of many strings used in Hindustani classical music and in the folk music of Rajasthan, not by the Bauls. Option C, the shehnai, is the double reed wind instrument played at weddings and in temples, raised to the concert stage by Bismillah Khan. Option D, the nadaswaram, is the long wind instrument of temple music in Tamil Nadu, usually played with the thavil drum.

The correct answer is C, caves 30 to 34. The thirty-four caves at Ellora in Maharashtra are grouped by faith: caves 1 to 12 are Buddhist, caves 13 to 29 are Hindu, and caves 30 to 34 are Jain, the finest of the Jain group being Cave 32, the Indra Sabha, with its carved mandapa and the image of Mahavira. Option A names the Buddhist group, which includes Cave 10, the Vishvakarma chaitya, the only chaitya hall at Ellora. Option B names the Hindu group, which includes Cave 16, the rock-cut Kailasa temple carved in the reign of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna the First. Option D is not a group at all; those numbers fall inside the Hindu range. The site is a World Heritage Site and is valued precisely because three faiths were carved side by side in the same cliff.

The correct answer is D, Golconda. Golconda Fort near Hyderabad in Telangana was first raised as a mud fort by the Kakatiya rulers of Warangal in the thirteenth century. The Bahmani sultans took it later, and the Qutb Shahi kings rebuilt it in granite in the sixteenth century, adding the long walls, the eight gates and the palaces seen today. The fort is famous for its acoustics: a clap at the Fateh Darwaza can be heard at the pavilion on the hilltop, a signal once used to warn the garrison. The diamond mines around it, such as Kollur, made Golconda a great market for stones like the Koh-i-Noor and the Hope diamond. A is wrong because Panhala in Kolhapur is linked with the Shilaharas and later with Shivaji. B is wrong because Raigad was Shivaji's capital fort in Maharashtra. C is wrong because Neemrana in Rajasthan was a Chauhan fort. Exam tip: Golconda, a Kakatiya mud fort rebuilt by the Qutb Shahis, known for diamonds and acoustics.

The correct answer is C, Bahubali. The Gommateshwara statue at Shravanabelagola is a monolithic image of Bahubali, son of the first Tirthankara, and it was raised by Chavundaraya, a minister of the Western Ganga kingdom; the Mahamastakabhisheka, in which the statue is anointed, is held once in twelve years. Option A, Mahavira, is wrong; he was the twenty-fourth Tirthankara and the historical teacher of Jainism, but Bahubali was not a Tirthankara at all, which is exactly the distinction being tested. Option B, Parshvanatha, is wrong because he was the twenty-third Tirthankara, usually shown with a serpent hood. Option D, Adinatha or Rishabhanatha, is wrong, though he is Bahubali's father and the first Tirthankara, and the Vimal Vasahi temple at Dilwara is dedicated to him. Note also that the statue stands at Shravanabelagola in the Hassan district of Karnataka, not at Mount Abu or Palitana, so the site and the figure are often tested together in one question.

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, Parasnath hill, Jharkhand. Sammed Shikharji stands on Parasnath hill in the Giridih district of Jharkhand, the highest hill in the state, and is held to be the place where twenty of the twenty-four tirthankaras attained liberation, which makes it the holiest of all Jain tirthas. Option B, Shatrunjaya hill in Gujarat, carries the Palitana temple cluster, the largest group of Jain temples in the country, but it is not the place of liberation of the tirthankaras. Option C, Vindhyagiri hill at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, carries the Gommateshwara statue of Bahubali. Option D is a distractor; the Chandragiri hill associated with Jainism is also at Shravanabelagola, not in Madhya Pradesh. Pavapuri in Bihar, where Mahavira attained nirvana, is a separate site.

The correct answer is B, the Ramanathaswamy Temple at Rameswaram. Its third corridor, lined with more than a thousand carved pillars, is the longest temple corridor in India, and the temple is doubly important for examinations because it is both a Jyotirlinga and the southern member of the Char Dham. Option A, the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai, is wrong but close, since it is famous for its hall of a thousand pillars and for its towering gopurams on the Vaigai. Option C, the Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur, is wrong; its distinction is the height of its vimana and its Chola authorship, not a corridor. Option D, the Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar, is wrong because it is a Nagara-style shrine of the Somavamsi period and such long pillared corridors belong to the southern tradition.

The correct answer is B, anda. The anda, meaning the egg, is the solid hemispherical dome of a stupa, raised over the relic chamber, and it is the part that gives the stupa its shape. Option A, the harmika, is the small square railing or balcony placed on top of the dome, from which the mast rises. Option C, the medhi, is the drum or circular base on which the dome sits and which often carries a raised walkway. Option D, the vedika, is the stone railing around the stupa that encloses the pradakshina path for circumambulation, and the ornamental gateways in it are the toranas; above the harmika come the yashti, the mast, and the chhatra, the umbrellas. The Great Stupa at Sanchi shows every one of these parts clearly, which is why examiners use it as the standard example.

The correct answer is B, Guru Arjan Dev. The fifth Guru compiled the Adi Granth and installed it in the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar in 1604, Baba Buddha being appointed its first Granthi. Option A, Guru Ram Das, is the strongest distractor because the fourth Guru founded the city and had the Amrit Sarovar tank excavated, so the site is his work even though the scripture was installed by his successor. Option C, Guru Hargobind, is wrong; the sixth Guru built the Akal Takht facing the Harmandir Sahib and introduced the idea of temporal authority alongside the spiritual. Option D, Guru Tegh Bahadur, is wrong because the ninth Guru belongs to a later period and is remembered for his martyrdom at Delhi. Keep the chain in order: Ram Das founds, Arjan Dev completes and installs, Hargobind fortifies.