Art & Culture Mixed Quiz: Set 35

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. The palace stands in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu, although it was the seat of the rulers of Travancore and is to this day maintained by the Government of Kerala, a division that followed the reorganisation of states. Option A is wrong for the location, and it is the answer most candidates give, because the palace belongs to Kerala's history and administration; the question is set precisely to catch that. Option C is wrong because the wooden palaces and the Indo-Saracenic Amba Vilas palace of Karnataka belong to Mysuru and the Wadiyar rulers. Option D is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has no palace of this kind in the standard lists. Padmanabhapuram is described as the largest wooden palace complex in Asia, and its teak and rosewood work is the feature named in questions.

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, Uttarakhand. Ramman is celebrated in the twin villages of Saloor Dungra in Chamoli district, in the Garhwal Himalayas, in honour of the local deity Bhumiyal Devta, and it combines masked dances, recitation and episodes from the Ramayana over several days. It was inscribed in 2009 and is the only Indian element of that year. Option A, Himachal Pradesh, has no element on the Representative List, though its fairs are often offered as a plausible answer. Option C, Sikkim, is wrong as well. Option D is wrong, but the neighbouring Ladakh region does hold an element, the Buddhist chanting of Ladakh, inscribed in 2012, which is the distractor a careless reader picks. Remember Ramman with the year 2009 and the district Chamoli.

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 B, Murshidabad, West Bengal. The palace was built in the nineteenth century for the Nawab Nazim of Bengal on the bank of the Bhagirathi, and takes its name from its very large number of doorways, many of them false, which is the detail questions turn on. Option A is wrong because the palaces and monuments of the nawabs at Lucknow are the Bara Imambara, the Chota Imambara and the Rumi Darwaza. Option C is wrong because Patna's historic buildings are of another kind and Murshidabad, not Patna, was the seat of the Bengal nawabs. Option D is wrong because Bhopal is associated with the Taj-ul-Masajid and the palaces of its Begums. Murshidabad is also where the battle of Plassey was fought nearby in 1757, which is why the place name is familiar from history as well.

The correct answer is C, Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh declared Mallakhamb its state game in 2013, and the question survives in paper after paper because the art itself is associated with Maharashtra, where it was revived in the nineteenth century as training for wrestlers. Option A is therefore the trap: Maharashtra is the home of the art but it is not the state that adopted it as its state game. Option B is wrong; Chhattisgarh has no such declaration on record in the standard lists. Option D is wrong because Rajasthan is not linked to Mallakhamb at all. Read the stem carefully in such questions, since a paper setter can ask either where the art comes from or which state adopted it, and the two answers are different. Mallakhamb was also among the indigenous games added to the Khelo India Youth Games from 2021.

The correct answer is C, Punjab. Jandiala Guru is a town near Amritsar where the Thathera community beats sheets of brass and copper into utensils entirely by hand, heating and hammering the metal in a sequence that has been passed down within families; the craft was inscribed in 2014. Option A, Uttar Pradesh, is wrong, though the state is linked to the Ramlila and to the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. Option B, Rajasthan, is represented by Kalbelia songs and dances, not by a craft. Option D, Bihar, has no element on the list, and Madhubani painting, which students often think of here, has a geographical indication tag rather than a UNESCO inscription. This is the only traditional craft of India on the Representative List, which is why the question is so often set.

The correct answer is A, the Waghora. The Ajanta caves in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra are excavated in the curved cliff of a gorge cut by the small Waghora river, and it was on this cliff that a British hunting party led by John Smith came upon the caves in 1819. Option B is wrong because the Godavari, though the great river of the Deccan, does not flow past Ajanta. Option C is wrong because the Tapi flows further north and west into the Gulf of Khambhat. Option D is wrong because the Wainganga belongs to the Godavari system in eastern Maharashtra. The caves fall into two phases, an early Hinayana group of the Satavahana period and a larger Mahayana group of the Vakataka period under Harisena, and they hold the Padmapani and Vajrapani paintings of Cave 1.

The correct answer is C, Chennai. Fort St George was built by the East India Company at Madras in the 1640s and was the first English fort in India; the settlement that grew around it became the Madras presidency. Option A is wrong because the English fort of Bengal is Fort William at Calcutta, which came later and gave its name to that presidency, making it the commonest wrong answer. Option B is wrong because Bombay came to the Company from the Portuguese by way of the English crown and was fortified afterwards; it had no fort of this precedence. Option D is wrong because Surat held the Company's earliest factory in India, from 1613, but a factory is a trading post and not a fort; a question that asks for the first factory expects Surat, and one that asks for the first fort expects Madras.

The correct answer is B, Assam. Bihu songs are sung at Rongali or Bohag Bihu, the spring festival that marks the Assamese new year in April, and they are accompanied by the dhol, the pepa made from a buffalo horn and the jaw harp called gogona. Assam also has the Borgeet, the devotional songs composed by Srimanta Sankardeva, and the Zikir. Option A, Manipur, is known for the songs of the Lai Haraoba festival and for the pena, a bowed instrument; its Sankirtana was inscribed by UNESCO in 2013. Option C, Tripura, has its own tribal song traditions, among them Hojagiri, which is better known as a dance. Option D, Meghalaya, holds the Shad Suk Mynsiem and Wangala festivals, which carry their own music. The three Bihus of the Assamese year are Rongali in April, Kongali in October and Bhogali in January, and the songs of Rongali are the ones meant here.

The correct answer is B, Manipur. Sankirtana is the Vaishnava practice of the Meitei people, performed in the temple courtyard, in which narrative singing is accompanied by the pung drum and cymbals and the performance moves from song into dance; it was inscribed in 2013. Option A, Assam, is wrong; the Sattriya dance and the Bihu festival of that state are not on the Representative List. Option C, Odisha, appears on the list only through its share of the Chhau dance, in the Mayurbhanj style. Option D, West Bengal, holds two connections, the Purulia style of Chhau and Durga Puja in Kolkata of 2021, which makes it a strong distractor for a Vaishnava singing tradition. Fix Sankirtana with Manipur, 2013 and the pung drum. A further detail is worth storing: Sankirtana was nominated in the domain of performing arts, and the citation described how the performance binds the congregation to the deity and to one another inside the temple hall.

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 A, The birthplace of Maharana Pratap. Kumbhalgarh, built by Rana Kumbha in the Aravalli hills, is remembered both as Maharana Pratap's birthplace and for its very long encircling wall, held to be among the longest in the world. Option B is wrong because Rana Sanga, who fought Babur at Khanua, is not associated with this fort as a birthplace. Option C is wrong because the Vijay Stambha stands at Chittorgarh, the other great fort of Mewar, and the two forts are regularly swapped in options. Option D is wrong because the water fort of Rajasthan is Gagron at Jhalawar, surrounded on three sides by rivers and therefore called a jal durg; Kumbhalgarh is a hill fort. Both Kumbhalgarh and Gagron are among the six inscribed together as the Hill Forts of Rajasthan in 2013.

The correct answer is B, Sushruta. The Sushruta Samhita is the classical Indian treatise on Shalya Tantra, surgery, and it describes operations for cataract and for bladder stone, the repair of a severed nose that later writers called rhinoplasty, the eight kinds of surgical procedure and a long list of surgical instruments, which is why Sushruta is titled the father of surgery. Option A is wrong because Charaka wrote the Charaka Samhita on Kayachikitsa, internal medicine, and is called the father of Indian medicine instead. Option C is wrong because Vagbhata wrote the Ashtanga Hridaya and the Ashtanga Sangraha, compendia that summarise both earlier works. Option D is wrong because Bhavamishra wrote the much later Bhavaprakasha, one of the three texts of the Laghu Trayi.

The correct answer is B, 2003. The General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention in 2003; it entered into force in 2006 and India ratified it in 2005. Option A, 1972, is the single commonest trap in this topic, because that is the year of the World Heritage Convention, under which monuments and natural sites such as the Taj Mahal and Kaziranga are protected. Option C, 2006, is the year the Convention came into force rather than the year of adoption, and a careful reading of the stem is what separates the two. Option D, 2016, is the year Yoga was inscribed and has nothing to do with the treaty. Store the pair as 1972 for tangible heritage and 2003 for intangible heritage, with 2006 as the year of entry into force.

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, Agra Fort. The Jahangiri Mahal is the large red sandstone palace within Agra Fort, built in Akbar's reign for the women of the household and later named after Jahangir; the Khas Mahal, the Sheesh Mahal and the Musamman Burj, where Shah Jahan passed his last years, stand in the same fort. Option A is wrong because the palaces of the Red Fort at Delhi are the Rang Mahal, the Mumtaz Mahal and the halls of audience. Option C is wrong because Fatehpur Sikri is known for the Buland Darwaza, the Panch Mahal and the Diwan-i-Khas with its central pillar. Option D is wrong because the palace within Gwalior Fort is the Man Mandir of Raja Man Singh Tomar, with the Gujari Mahal below it. Naming the structure with its fort is the surest way through these questions, since the names are easily transferred.

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, the Sangeet Natak Akademi. The national academy for music, dance and drama is the nodal office for intangible cultural heritage under the Ministry of Culture, prepares India's nominations and maintains the national inventory of intangible heritage. Option A, the Archaeological Survey of India, works on monuments and archaeological sites and handles World Heritage nominations of the tangible kind, which is why it is the obvious wrong answer. Option C, the Lalit Kala Akademi, is the national academy of fine arts and deals with painting, sculpture and graphic art. Option D, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, is a research and documentation body in the arts but is not the nodal agency for these nominations. Pair the Archaeological Survey with 1972 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi with 2003.

The correct answer is C, Dhrupad. Dhrupad is austere and devotional, sung in four sections called sthayi, antara, sanchari and abhog, and it opens with a long unmetred alap. It is accompanied by the pakhawaj rather than the tabla. Raja Man Singh Tomar of Gwalior is remembered for patronising it, and the Dagar family has carried it into modern times.

Option A, khayal, takes its name from the Persian word for imagination, allows far more ornament, and only became the dominant form long after dhrupad; it is sung as a slow bada khayal followed by a fast chhota khayal. Option B, thumri, is semi-classical and romantic, with Lucknow and Benares as its centres and Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh as its best known patron. Option D, tappa, is a quick form full of short runs that grew out of the songs of the camel drivers of Punjab. All four are Hindustani vocal forms, but dhrupad is the oldest of them.