Set 118 of the Indian History mixed quiz has 20 multiple-choice questions from 10 different topics of the subject: Coins and Currency in Indian History, Cities and Capitals Founded by Indian Rulers, Ancient Ports and Maritime Trade of India and more. 5 of them were asked in real previous-year papers. A topic quiz checks one chapter; this set revises the whole subject at once, the way an exam paper does, where the next question can come from any chapter. Every question carries an explanation of why the correct option is right and why the others are wrong. Keep to the timer, read the explanations at the end, and go back to the notes of any topic where you slipped.
20 questions with answers and explanations
The token currency of brass and copper, made legal tender at the value of silver, was issued by
In 1329 or 1330 he issued brass and copper tokens declared to be worth a silver tanka.
Read the full explanation →Fatehpur Sikri was built as a capital by which Mughal emperor?
Akbar began building Fatehpur Sikri near Agra from 1571, naming it after his victory in Gujarat, and it served as his capital for roughly fourteen years before the court returned to Agra and later moved to Lahore.
Read the full explanation →The ancient port of Muziris, the chief pepper market of the Indo-Roman trade, lay on the coast of which present day state?
Muziris, called Muchiri in Tamil sources, stood near Kodungallur on the Periyar, and the excavations at Pattanam in Ernakulam district have yielded Roman amphora sherds, glass beads and brick structures that fit its description in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
Read the full explanation →Who among the following invented the flying shuttle?
He patented the flying shuttle in England in 1733. The flying shuttle let a single weaver send the thread across the loom by pulling a cord, so wider cloth could be woven much faster.
Read the full explanation →The silver coin called rupiya, the ancestor of the modern Indian rupee, was first issued by
As part of his reform of the currency he issued a silver coin of about one hundred and seventy-eight grains called the rupiya, together with a copper dam and a gold mohur, and fixed their rates of exchange.
Read the full explanation →Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel Anandamath is based on which of the following uprisings?
Anandamath, published in 1882, draws on the rebellion of wandering monks and fakirs in Bengal and Bihar that ran from about 1763 to 1800, and the song Vande Mataram first appeared in this novel.
Read the full explanation →The site of Arikamedu, where Roman amphorae and rouletted ware were excavated, appears in the Periplus under which name?
Arikamedu, on the Ariyankuppam river near Puducherry, is identified with the Poduke of the Periplus and the Poduke emporion of Ptolemy.
Read the full explanation →King Shashanka, against whom Harshvardhana declared war, was a ruler of the ________ kingdom.
Shashanka was the king of Gauda, the region of Bengal with its centre at Karnasuvarna. He killed Harsha's elder brother Rajyavardhana, and it was to avenge that killing, and to recover his sister Rajyashri, that Harsha declared war and allied with Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa.
Read the full explanation →Coins bearing the twelve signs of the zodiac were issued by which Mughal emperor?
Jahangir struck a celebrated series of gold and silver coins showing the twelve signs of the zodiac, and another series carrying his own portrait, which is unusual in Islamic coinage; he also issued coins in the name of Nur Jahan.
Read the full explanation →Who among the following was the tenth Sikh Guru?
Guru Gobind Singh, born at Patna in 1666, was the tenth and last human Guru of the Sikhs. In 1699 at Anandpur Sahib he founded the Khalsa, gave the Sikhs the five symbols known as the five Ks and added the names Singh and Kaur.
Read the full explanation →The ancient port of Tamralipti, from which Fa-Hien sailed for Sri Lanka, is in which present day state?
Tamralipti is modern Tamluk in Purba Medinipur district, on the Rupnarayan river near its meeting with the Hooghly.
Read the full explanation →Who among the following had organised, in 1904, a secret society of revolutionaries named Abhinav Bharat?
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar founded Abhinav Bharat at Nashik in 1904, together with his brother Ganesh. It grew out of an earlier group called Mitra Mela and took its name from Mazzini’s Young Italy, whose biography Savarkar translated into Marathi.
Read the full explanation →The largest number of gold coins in ancient India was issued by which dynasty?
Gupta gold coins, called dinara, survive in greater numbers than those of any other ancient Indian dynasty, and their types form a gallery of royal images: the King and Queen type, the Ashvamedha and Lyrist types of Samudragupta, and the Archer and Chakravikrama types of Chandragupta II.
Read the full explanation →PEPSU, one of the unions of states formed out of princely territory, stood for which of the following?
It was formed in 1948 by grouping Patiala with Kapurthala, Jind, Nabha, Faridkot, Malerkotla, Nalagarh and Kalsia, with the Maharaja of Patiala as Rajpramukh, and it became a Part B state under the Constitution of 1950.
Read the full explanation →Which Greek pilot is credited with using the south west monsoon winds to sail directly across the Arabian Sea to India?
Around the middle of the first century of the Christian era this pilot is said to have worked out the rhythm of the south west monsoon, after which ships ran straight from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Malabar coast instead of hugging the shore, cutting the voyage…
Read the full explanation →Who was the first and the most important king of the Rashtrakuta dynasty of Karnataka who defeated the Chalukyas of Badami?
Dantidurga founded the Rashtrakuta dynasty in the middle of the eighth century, threw off the overlordship of the Chalukyas of Badami by defeating Kirtivarman II, and took imperial titles; his successors ruled from Manyakheta, the modern Malkhed.
Read the full explanation →The King and Queen type gold coins, showing a ruler with Kumaradevi, are associated with
These coins show a king with the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi on one face and a seated goddess with the legend Lichchhavayah on the other, and they are conventionally attributed to Chandragupta I, whose marriage to her strengthened the early Gupta state; some scholars believe his son struck them in his…
Read the full explanation →Which Indian export was known in Tamil sources as yavanapriya, the favourite of the Yavanas?
The Sangam poems and later Sanskrit texts call pepper yavanapriya, literally dear to the Yavanas, the word used for the Greeks and Romans who crowded the Malabar ports for it.
Read the full explanation →In the Arthashastra, the officer in charge of the mint was called
The Arthashastra of Kautilya describes a large body of superintendents, and the Lakshanadhyaksha was the superintendent of the mint, responsible for striking coins of the prescribed weight and alloy.
Read the full explanation →Which Chola ruler sent the naval expedition against the Srivijaya empire of Sumatra in 1025 of the Christian era?
The correct answer is B, Rajendra I, the son of Rajaraja I, who in 1025 of the Christian era sent a Chola fleet across the Bay of Bengal against Srivijaya, the trading power that controlled the straits of Malacca and Sunda, and recorded the campaign in his inscriptions along with…
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