Indian History Quiz: Gupta Empire

The correct answer is D, Gupta Dynasty. Gupta imperial rule is conventionally dated from about 320 CE, the epoch of the Gupta era that begins with the accession of Chandragupta I, and it faded out by about 550 CE after the Huna invasions. Those two dates are the ones textbooks attach to the dynasty, which is why the question frames the period as 320 to 550 AD.

Option A, the Mauryan dynasty, is far older and ruled from about 322 BCE to 185 BCE. Option B, the Hoysala dynasty, was a later Karnataka power of the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, famous for the temples at Belur and Halebidu. Option C, the Magadha dynasty, is not a dynasty at all but a region and kingdom in south Bihar; its ruling houses were the Haryankas, Shishunagas, Nandas and Mauryas, each of which held power centuries before 320 CE.

The correct answer is D, Dinaras. Gupta gold coins were called dinaras, a name borrowed from the Roman denarius that had already reached India through trade and through Kushana coinage. The Guptas struck more gold coins than any other ancient Indian dynasty, and their types, such as the Archer, the Ashvamedha and the Lyrist, are a major source for the dynasty's history.

Option A, rupaka, was the Gupta silver coin, introduced by Chandragupta II after he defeated the Shaka Kshatrapas and took over their silver currency zone in western India. Option B, tanka, was the silver coin of the Delhi Sultanate, standardised by Iltutmish in the thirteenth century. Option C, drama or dramma, was a silver coin used by several post-Gupta and early medieval dynasties of western and central India, and was never the Gupta gold denomination.

The correct answer is B, Chandragupta I. The first two members of the family, Sri Gupta and Ghatotkacha, used only the modest title Maharaja, which historians read as a sign that they were subordinate rulers. Chandragupta I was the first to assume the imperial title Maharajadhiraja, king of great kings, and the Gupta era of 319 to 320 CE is counted from his accession. His marriage to the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi is celebrated on the king and queen type gold coins.

Option A, Ramagupta, is a shadowy figure known mainly from the play Devichandraguptam and a few inscriptions, and he never raised the family's status. Option C, Samudragupta, was Chandragupta I's son and inherited the imperial title rather than introducing it. Option D, Skandagupta, ruled almost a century and a half later and is remembered for checking the Hunas.

The correct answer is B, Harishena. Harishena was the court poet and a high officer of Samudragupta, and he composed the Prayag Prashasti in ornate Sanskrit, partly in verse and partly in prose. The inscription is engraved on a pillar that already carried edicts of Ashoka, so the same stone preserves records separated by about six hundred years. It is the single most important source for Samudragupta's campaigns.

Option A, Kalidasa, was the greatest Sanskrit poet and dramatist of the age and is linked by tradition to the court of Chandragupta II, but he wrote no inscription. Option C, Banabhatta, belongs to the seventh century and was the court poet of Harshavardhana, for whom he wrote the Harshacharita; candidates often confuse Harishena with Harsha's poet because of the similar names. Option D, Vishakhadatta, wrote the plays Mudrarakshasa and Devichandraguptam.

The correct answer is C, Chandragupta II. He ended the long rule of the Shaka Kshatrapas over Gujarat, Kathiawar and Malwa, took the title Shakari meaning enemy of the Shakas, and is also known by the title Vikramaditya. The conquest gave the Guptas the western sea ports and the revenue of the trade passing through them, and it is the reason he began issuing silver rupakas modelled on Shaka coins for that region.

Option A, Samudragupta, campaigned in the Ganga plain and the Deccan but left the western Kshatrapas alone; the Prayag Prashasti names the Shakas only among rulers offering submission. Option B, Kumaragupta I, is remembered for founding Nalanda and for the first signs of Huna pressure. Option D, Skandagupta, fought the Hunas and repaired the Sudarshana lake, not the Shakas.

The correct answer is B, Fa-Hien. Fa-Hien came to India in search of Buddhist texts and travelled through the Gupta dominions during the reign of Chandragupta II. His account describes a peaceful realm with light punishments, notes that people could travel without passes, records charitable hospitals at Pataliputra, and also reports that Chandalas lived outside towns and had to strike wood to warn others of their approach.

Option A, Hiuen Tsang, came two centuries later in the seventh century, during the reign of Harshavardhana, and studied at Nalanda. Option C, I-tsing, also belongs to the seventh century and wrote about monastic practice in India and the islands of South East Asia. Option D, Megasthenes, was not Chinese at all: he was the Greek ambassador of Seleucus Nicator at the Mauryan court of Chandragupta Maurya and wrote the Indica.

The correct answer is C, Kumaragupta I. Kumaragupta I, who bore the title Mahendraditya, is credited with founding the Nalanda Mahavihara in present-day Bihar. Later rulers, including Harshavardhana and the Palas, endowed it further, and it grew into the largest residential centre of Buddhist learning in Asia before it was destroyed in the late twelfth century. Its fame rests largely on the detailed account left by the seventh century pilgrim Hiuen Tsang, who studied there.

Option A, Samudragupta, is remembered for conquests and for the Prayag Prashasti. Option B, Chandragupta II, is linked with the Shaka conquest, the Vakataka marriage alliance and the visit of Fa-Hien, who in fact does not describe Nalanda as a great university. Option D, Skandagupta, spent his reign defending the empire against the Hunas and restoring the Sudarshana lake in Saurashtra.

The correct answer is A, Skandagupta. The Sudarshana lake near Girnar in Saurashtra was an artificial reservoir first built in Mauryan times and repaired more than once. The Junagadh rock carries three sets of records on it: the edicts of Ashoka, the inscription of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman I on an earlier repair, and the inscription of Skandagupta recording that his governor rebuilt the embankment after it burst. Skandagupta is otherwise remembered for beating back the Hunas.

Option B, Chandragupta I, ruled more than a century earlier and left no such record. Option C, Samudragupta, is known from the Allahabad pillar, not from Junagadh. Option D, Kumaragupta I, is known from the Bilsad pillar and the Damodarpur copper plates, and it was in his reign that Huna pressure first appeared on the frontier.

The correct answer is C, Aryabhata. Aryabhata completed the Aryabhatiya in 499 CE at the age of twenty-three. In it he held that the apparent daily movement of the stars is caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis, explained solar and lunar eclipses as shadows rather than as the work of Rahu and Ketu, and gave a close approximation for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Option A, Varahamihira, belongs to the sixth century and wrote the Brihat Samhita and the Panchasiddhantika, works on omens, astrology and the five earlier astronomical systems. Option B, Brahmagupta, wrote the Brahmasphutasiddhanta in 628 CE and is famous for rules on zero and negative numbers. Option D, Bhaskara II, is a twelfth century mathematician, the author of Siddhanta Shiromani, which includes the Lilavati.

The correct answer is B, Uparika. The Gupta empire was divided into provinces called bhuktis, each placed under a governor called an uparika who was often a prince of the royal family. The bhukti was subdivided into districts, and the whole structure is known mainly from the Damodarpur copper plates of Bengal, which also name the town board of the chief banker, the caravan leader, the chief artisan and the chief scribe.

Option A, vishayapati, was the officer in charge of a vishaya, that is a district, one level below the bhukti. Option C, gramika, was the headman of a village, the lowest unit of the system. Option D, rajuka, belongs to Mauryan administration, where rajukas were rural officers entrusted by Ashoka with both revenue duties and judicial authority, and the term is not used for Gupta provinces.

The correct answer is B, the Dashavatara temple at Deogarh in Uttar Pradesh. Built in the early sixth century, it is one of the first stone temples to carry a shikhara over the sanctum, the feature that defines the Nagara style, and its panels of Vishnu reclining on Shesha and of Nara-Narayana are standard illustrations of Gupta sculpture. Other Gupta temples often paired with it are the brick temple at Bhitargaon and temple number 17 at Sanchi.

Option A, the Kailasa temple at Ellora, was cut from the rock in the eighth century under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I. Option C, the Brihadeeswara temple at Thanjavur, is a Dravida style temple of the Chola king Rajaraja I, completed in 1010 CE. Option D, the Sun temple at Konark, was built by the Eastern Ganga king Narasimhadeva I in the thirteenth century.