This Bihar quiz on Nalanda, Vikramshila and Ancient Learning puts 10 multiple-choice questions to you, the verified MCQs published with GK24's note on the topic, 1 of them asked in real previous-year papers. Every question carries a full explanation of why the correct option is right and why the other options are wrong, so you learn the fact behind the answer rather than the letter. Attempt it right after reading the note, keep to the timer, and use the explanations at the end to mark what needs another look. Sit it again before the exam as a quick revision of the topic.
10 questions with answers and explanations
Nalanda was an ancient centre of learning for which religion?
Nalanda was a Buddhist monastic university, a mahavihara, where the main course of study was the Mahayana canon along with logic, grammar, medicine and astronomy.
Read the full explanation →The Nalanda Mahavihara was founded by which ruler?
The Gupta emperor Kumaragupta the first, who appears in the records with the title Shakraditya, founded the monastic university at Nalanda in the fifth century.
Read the full explanation →Under which teacher did the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang study at Nalanda?
Hiuen Tsang reached Nalanda in the seventh century during the reign of Harshavardhana and spent several years there studying the Yogachara philosophy under Shilabhadra, who was then the abbot.
Read the full explanation →Vikramshila university was founded by which ruler?
The Pala king Dharmapala founded Vikramshila in the late eighth century at Antichak in what is now Bhagalpur district, on a height above the Ganga, as a rival and a complement to Nalanda.
Read the full explanation →The remains of Vikramshila are located in which district of Bihar?
Vikramshila stood at Antichak village in Bhagalpur district, on raised ground overlooking the Ganga, and excavation has revealed a great cruciform stupa at the centre with monastic cells arranged in a square around it, a plan very different from the rows of monasteries at Nalanda.
Read the full explanation →Which scholar of Vikramshila went to Tibet and reformed Buddhism there?
Atisha was the most famous head of Vikramshila and left for Tibet in the eleventh century at the invitation of its western kings.
Read the full explanation →The monastery of Odantapuri, from which the name Bihar is usually traced, was founded by whom?
Gopala, the first king of the Pala dynasty, founded Odantapuri at the place now called Biharsharif in Nalanda district. The word vihara, meaning a Buddhist monastery, gave the region and then the state its name, and Odantapuri is the monastery most often named in that explanation.
Read the full explanation →The library of Nalanda was known by which name?
The library complex of Nalanda was called Dharmaganja, the treasury of truth, and later accounts say it stood in three buildings, Ratnasagara, Ratnodadhi and Ratnaranjaka, of which Ratnodadhi is described as nine storeys high.
Read the full explanation →Who destroyed the monastic universities of Nalanda and Vikramshila at the end of the twelfth century?
Ikhtiyaruddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, a commander in the service of the Ghurids, overran the middle Ganga plain at the end of the twelfth century, sacking Odantapuri and Vikramshila and laying Nalanda waste soon after.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List?
The archaeological site of Nalanda Mahavihara in Bihar was added to the World Heritage List in 2016, in recognition of a monastic and scholastic institution that functioned without a break from the third century before the Common Era to the thirteenth century.
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