Indian History Mixed Quiz: Set 23

The correct answer is B, Majjhima Nikaya. The Sutta Pitaka is the basket of the Buddha's discourses and is divided into five collections called Nikayas: Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta, Anguttara and Khuddaka. The Majjhima Nikaya is the collection of middle length discourses and holds about one hundred and fifty two sermons on meditation, right conduct and the middle path. The Sutta Pitaka is one of the three baskets of the Pali canon, the others being the Vinaya Pitaka on monastic rules and the Abhidhamma Pitaka on philosophy. A is wrong because the Dipavamsa is a Sri Lankan chronicle of the island's history, not part of the canon. C is wrong because the Dhammasangani is the first book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. D is wrong because the Manu Smriti is a Brahmanical law text and has nothing to do with Buddhism. Exam tip: Tripitaka means Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma, and Sutta holds five Nikayas.

The correct answer is D, Dantidurga. Dantidurga founded the Rashtrakuta kingdom in the Deccan in about 753 CE.

Dantidurga was a feudatory of the Chalukyas of Badami and overthrew the Chalukya ruler Kirtivarman II to set up independent rule, with Manyakheta, today's Malkhed in Karnataka, becoming the capital. The Rashtrakutas were one of the three powers in the long tripartite struggle for Kannauj, along with the Palas and the Pratiharas. Arab traveller Al-Masudi called their ruler one of the great kings of the world.

A is wrong: Ashoka was a Mauryan emperor of the third century BCE. B is wrong: Amoghavarsha was a later Rashtrakuta king, the author of Kavirajamarga in Kannada. C is wrong: Krishna I was Dantidurga's successor and is remembered for the rock-cut Kailasa temple at Ellora.

Exam tip: Rashtrakutas - founded by Dantidurga about 753 CE, capital Manyakheta, Kailasa temple built by Krishna I.

The correct answer is D, Gauda. 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.

Option A, Kanyakubja, is the old name of Kannauj, the Maukhari capital that Harsha himself took over and made his own seat, so it is not the kingdom Harsha attacked. Option B, Junagarh, is a place in Saurashtra in Gujarat known for the rock edicts of Ashoka and the Rudradaman and Skandagupta inscriptions, and had no connection with Shashanka. Option C, Magadha, is the south Bihar kingdom of the Haryankas, Nandas, Mauryas and Guptas; by Harsha's day it was part of his own empire and not the base of Shashanka.

The correct answer is B, Third. The Third Anglo-Maratha War, fought in 1817-18 under Lord Hastings, ended Maratha power. Peshwa Baji Rao II was beaten at Khadki, Koregaon and Ashti, the office of Peshwa was abolished, and his lands around Poona were taken over and joined to the Bombay Presidency. Baji Rao II was pensioned off to Bithur near Kanpur, and a small kingdom was carved out at Satara for a descendant of Shivaji. With this the East India Company became the paramount power in India. Option A is wrong because there was no fourth Anglo-Maratha war; the Marathas fought three. Option C is wrong because the Second War of 1803-05 followed the Treaty of Bassein and cost the Marathas Orissa, Delhi and Agra, but the Peshwa stayed on his seat. Option D is wrong because the First War of 1775-82 ended in the Treaty of Salbai, which restored the position as it was before the war. Exam tip: Salbai 1782, Bassein 1802, Peshwaship abolished 1818.

The correct answer is B, Iltutmish. Shamsuddin Iltutmish, who ruled from 1211 to 1236, moved the seat of government from Lahore to Delhi, completed the Qutb Minar that his father-in-law had begun, issued the silver tanka and the copper jital, organised the iqta system of land assignments and formed the Turkan-i-Chihalgani, the corps of forty Turkish nobles. He is therefore called the real consolidator of the Sultanate. Option A is wrong because Qutbuddin Aibak founded the dynasty in 1206 and kept Lahore as his centre; he only began the Qutb Minar and died in 1210. Option C is wrong because Balban came much later, from 1266 to 1287, and is remembered for the sijda and paibos ceremonies and for breaking the power of the Forty. Option D is wrong because Jalaluddin Khalji founded a different dynasty in 1290, long after the capital had moved.

The correct answer is A, Chahamana. The Bijolia rock inscription, at Bijolia in Bhilwara district of Rajasthan, is dated to 1170 CE, in the reign of Someshvara, and it sets out the family line of the Chahamanas, the Chauhans of Shakambhari. Written in Sanskrit, it was engraved near a Parshvanatha temple by the Jain merchant Lolaka, and it names the rulers from Samantaraja down to Someshvara, the father of Prithviraj Chauhan. Historians value it because it calls the Chahamanas Brahmins of the Vatsa gotra and gives the old names of places such as Ajayameru for Ajmer. Option B is wrong because the Chandelas of Bundelkhand, builders of Khajuraho, are known from the Khajuraho and Mau inscriptions. Option C is wrong because the Paramaras of Malwa appear in the Udaipur Prashasti. Option D is wrong because the Gahadavalas of Kannauj are known from the Chandrawati and other copper plates. Exam tip: Bijolia - Chahamanas; Khajuraho - Chandelas; Udaipur Prashasti - Paramaras.

The correct answer is C, Battle of Talikota. The Battle of Talikota, fought in January 1565, broke the Vijayanagara empire. The Deccan sultanates of Bijapur, Golconda, Ahmadnagar and Bidar joined hands against it, and their combined army defeated Aliya Rama Raya, the regent of the Aravidu dynasty, who was captured and killed on the field. The victors then sacked the capital Vijayanagara, at Hampi on the Tungabhadra, for months, and the city never recovered. The rulers moved to Penukonda and later Chandragiri, and the empire shrank away over the next century. The battle is also called Rakshasa-Tangadi, after the two villages near the site. A is wrong because the Battle of Raichur in 1520 was a Vijayanagara victory under Krishnadevaraya. B is wrong because Haldighati in 1576 was fought in Mewar between Maharana Pratap and Akbar's army. D is wrong because Arcot in 1751 belongs to the Carnatic wars. Exam tip: Talikota 1565, also called Rakshasa-Tangadi, Rama Raya killed and Hampi sacked.

The correct answer is A, Third battle of Panipat. Ahmad Shah Abdali, also called Ahmad Shah Durrani, defeated the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat on 14 January 1761. The Maratha army was led by Sadashivrao Bhau with the young Vishwasrao, while Abdali was joined by Najib-ud-Daula of the Rohillas and Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh. The Marathas lost a whole generation of commanders, and the defeat ended their march towards supremacy in north India, clearing the field for the British. Option B is wrong because the Battle of Khanwa in 1527 was fought between Babur and Rana Sanga of Mewar. Option C is wrong because the Battle of Buxar in 1764 saw the English under Hector Munro beat the combined forces of Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daula and Shah Alam II. Option D is wrong because the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 was won by Prithviraj Chauhan against Muhammad Ghori. Exam tip: Panipat 1526 Babur beat Ibrahim Lodi, 1556 Akbar beat Hemu, 1761 Abdali beat the Marathas.

The correct answer is C, Tax levied on revenue. Sardeshmukhi was a levy of one tenth, that is ten per cent, of the land revenue, which the Marathas claimed in territory outside their own kingdom. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj claimed it as the hereditary sardeshmukh or chief headman of Maharashtra, so it was presented as an old right rather than a new tax. It was collected along with chauth, which was one fourth or twenty five per cent of the revenue and was taken in return for protection, so together the two claims brought the Marathas thirty five per cent of the revenue of the areas they raided. A is wrong because sardeshmukhi was a tax, not an office ranking with the Peshwa, who was the chief minister. B is wrong because it was not a coin; Maratha coins included the hon and the shivrai. D is wrong because it was never a name for Shivaji himself. Exam tip: chauth one fourth, sardeshmukhi one tenth.

The correct answer is C, China. The Panchsheel agreement was signed on 29 April 1954 between India and China, as part of the treaty on trade between India and the Tibet region of China. Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai gave it the name Panchsheel, the five principles: respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. The slogan Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai belongs to those years, and the five principles later shaped the Non-Aligned Movement. The war of 1962 showed how little the agreement held. Option A is wrong because India's main agreements with Pakistan are the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 and the Simla Agreement of 1972. Option B is wrong because Bangladesh came into being only in 1971. Option D is wrong because the India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship was signed in 1950. Exam tip: Panchsheel - India and China, 29 April 1954, five principles.

The correct answer is D, 1761. The British East India Company captured Pondicherry from the French in 1761, during the Third Carnatic War, after Sir Eyre Coote had broken French power in the south at the Battle of Wandiwash in 1760. The town was handed back to France by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but the French were forbidden to fortify it or keep troops there, so it survived only as a trading settlement and the contest for India was settled in Britain's favour. Pondicherry stayed with France until it was transferred to India in 1954. A is wrong because 1674 is the year the French East India Company set up Pondicherry under Francois Martin. B is wrong because no such capture took place in 1699. C is wrong because 1738 falls before the Carnatic Wars began in 1746. Exam tip: Battle of Wandiwash 1760, Pondicherry captured 1761, returned by the Treaty of Paris 1763, merged with India 1954.

The correct answer is A, Akbar. Akbar introduced the mansabdari system in the closing years of the sixteenth century to grade every officer of the empire. Mansab means rank, and each mansabdar held two numbers: zat, which fixed his personal status and pay, and sawar, the number of armed horsemen he had to keep ready. Ranks ran from ten to five thousand, with higher ones kept for princes of the royal house. Akbar also brought in the dagh system of branding state horses and the chehra, a written description of each soldier, to stop officers from showing borrowed men at muster. Option D is wrong because Jahangir only added the du-aspa sih-aspa device, which raised a noble's cavalry without raising his zat. Option B is wrong because Shah Jahan merely introduced the month-scale, or mahana, to adjust pay. Option C is wrong because Aurangzeb continued the system as he found it. Exam tip: Akbar gave the mansabdari ranks and Todar Mal's dahsala revenue settlement.

The correct answer is D, 1856. Lord Dalhousie annexed Awadh in February 1856, in the last month of his term as Governor General. He did not use the Doctrine of Lapse here, because the Nawab Wajid Ali Shah had heirs; instead the British said the province was badly governed and took it over under the terms of the subsidiary alliance treaty of 1801. Wajid Ali Shah was pensioned off to Calcutta. The annexation angered the taluqdars who lost their estates and the sepoys of the Bengal Army, many of whom came from Awadh and lost the privileges they had enjoyed there, which is why Awadh became a centre of the revolt the very next year. A is wrong because 1857 is the year of the revolt itself. B and C are wrong because 1855 and 1858 fall on either side of the annexation. Exam tip: Awadh 1856, misgovernment not lapse, Wajid Ali Shah.

The correct answer is A, Hicky's Bengal Gazette. It was started in Calcutta in 1780 and was the first printed newspaper in India.

James Augustus Hicky brought it out as a weekly and called it the Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser. It carried sharp attacks on Warren Hastings and the officials of the East India Company, so the government stopped its postal circulation and shut the paper down in 1782, jailing Hicky. It remains the starting point of press history in India and of the long fight over press freedom.

Option B, The Madras Courier, appeared in 1785, five years later, as the first paper in Madras. Option C, The Bombay Herald, began in 1789. Option D, Maratha, was an English weekly founded by Bal Gangadhar Tilak in 1881, a century later.

Exam tip: 1780 Bengal Gazette, 1785 Madras Courier, 1789 Bombay Herald; Tilak ran Kesari in Marathi and Maratha in English.

The correct answer is D, Bagha Jatin. Jatindranath Mukherjee, known as Bagha Jatin, planned an armed rising against the British with German help during the First World War. He led the Jugantar group in Bengal and worked with Rash Behari Bose on what is called the Indo-German conspiracy: German ships were to land rifles on the Odisha coast, and those arms were to reach revolutionaries across the country for a general revolt. The plan leaked to British intelligence, and Jatin died in a gun battle with the police at Balasore in September 1915. He had earned his nickname years earlier by killing a Royal Bengal tiger with a dagger. A is wrong because Prafulla Chaki shot himself in 1908 after the Muzaffarpur bomb attack, well before the war. B is wrong because Ashfaqulla Khan belonged to the Kakori train robbery of 1925. C is wrong because Khudiram Bose was hanged in 1908, also for Muzaffarpur. Exam tip: Bagha Jatin, Jugantar, German arms plot, killed at Balasore in 1915.

The correct answer is A, England and France. The Hundred Years' War was fought between England and France from 1337 to 1453, so it actually ran for 116 years with long truces in between. It began when Edward III of England pressed his claim to the French throne, and behind that lay English lands in France and control of the wool trade of Flanders. England won the famous early battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, helped by the longbow, but France recovered after Joan of Arc raised the siege of Orleans in 1429, and by 1453 the English held only Calais. B is wrong because England and Italy fought no such war. C is wrong because England and Germany faced each other in the twentieth-century world wars, not in the fourteenth century. D is wrong because the German-French clash was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, far later and far shorter. Exam tip: Hundred Years' War 1337 to 1453, England against France, turned by Joan of Arc in 1429.

The correct answer is D, Dharampala. Dharmapala, the second and greatest ruler of the Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar, founded the Vikramshila monastery and university in the late eighth century in what is now Bhagalpur district of Bihar, and he also restored and supported the older university at Nalanda. Vikramshila became the leading centre of tantric Buddhism, and its scholar Atisa Dipankara carried Buddhism to Tibet. The Palas were the last great royal patrons of Buddhism in eastern India, and both universities were destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khalji around 1200. A is wrong because Gopala founded the Pala dynasty and the Odantapuri monastery, not Vikramshila. B is wrong because Vasudeva was a Kushan ruler of the north-west, far from Bengal and much earlier. C is wrong because Shri Gupta founded the Gupta line and lived centuries before the Palas. Exam tip: Nalanda founded by Kumaragupta I and revived by Dharmapala; Odantapuri by Gopala; Vikramshila by Dharmapala.

The correct answer is B, encompass services of nobles from different regions as the empire expanded. A mansabdar was an officer who held a mansab, a rank that fixed his position at court, his pay and the number of horsemen he had to keep ready. As the empire spread over Rajasthan, the Deccan and the east, the Mughals needed commanders and administrators who knew those regions, so Turanis, Iranis, Afghans, Rajputs and Deccanis were all taken into service. Akbar in particular widened recruitment, and the pay was met through a jagir, an assignment of revenue from a piece of land. A is wrong because language was not the reason for the policy. C is wrong because loyalty of local people was at most a by-product, not the purpose of recruitment. D is wrong because the aim was practical administration of a growing empire, not a social ideal. Exam tip: mansab means rank, zat fixes status and pay, sawar fixes the cavalry.

The correct answer is A, 1780-1784. The Second Anglo-Mysore War ran from 1780 to 1784. It began when the English took Mahe, a French port inside Haidar Ali's territory, and he answered by attacking the Carnatic. In 1780 he crushed Colonel Baillie's force at Pollilur, one of the worst English defeats in India, and Warren Hastings had to send Sir Eyre Coote south, who beat Haidar Ali at Porto Novo in 1781. Haidar Ali died of cancer in December 1782 and his son Tipu Sultan carried the war on. It closed with the Treaty of Mangalore in March 1784, under which both sides returned their conquests; it is remembered as the last treaty whose terms an Indian ruler set for the English. B is wrong because no Anglo-Mysore war was fought in 1769-1775. C is wrong because 1785-1789 was a break between wars. D is wrong because the first war was fought in 1767-1769 and ended with the Treaty of Madras. Exam tip: First 1767-69 Madras, Second 1780-84 Mangalore, Third 1790-92 Seringapatam, Fourth 1799.

The correct answer is C, Both A and B. India's village iron smelters were ruined by two pressures at once. Cheap iron and steel made in British factories was brought into India in large quantities from the middle of the nineteenth century, and local smiths could not match its price, so demand for their metal fell away. At the same time the colonial forest laws of the later nineteenth century turned large tracts into reserved forest and shut smelting communities out. They could no longer cut wood to make the charcoal their furnaces ran on, and without charcoal the furnaces went cold. Some paid heavy fees to enter, and many families gave up the craft and turned to farming or labour. A alone and B alone are incomplete, because each names only one of the two causes. D is wrong because both statements are correct. Exam tip: cheap British imports plus forest laws that cut off charcoal ended village iron smelting.