Madhya Pradesh Mixed Quiz: Set 13

The Part A state called Madhya Pradesh between 1950 and 1956 was the former Central Provinces and Berar, and its capital was Nagpur.

The Chandelas of Jejakabhukti built the Khajuraho group in Chhatarpur district between about 950 and 1050 CE, and the names of their rulers are tied to individual temples: Yashovarman to the Lakshmana temple and Vidyadhara to the Kandariya Mahadeva.

The archaeologist Vishnu Shridhar Wakankar noticed the shelters in the Vindhyan foothills of Raisen district in 1957 and began the study of their paintings, made in red and white ochre and showing hunters, dancers, animals and later riders with weapons.

The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 merged Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh, Bhopal and the Hindi-speaking districts of the old Madhya Pradesh into one state with effect from 1 November 1956, and the Marathi-speaking Vidarbha region went to Bombay State.

The Madhya Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000 separated sixteen districts of the Raipur, Bilaspur and Bastar divisions to form Chhattisgarh on 1 November 2000, the first of the three states created that year, with Raipur as its capital and the High Court at Bilaspur.

After the loss of Gwalior in June 1858 Tatya Tope fought a guerrilla war for about ten months through Guna, Rajgarh, Jhalawar and the Chambal ravines, crossing and recrossing the Narmada to avoid British columns.

The Khajuraho temples are classic north Indian Nagara temples: they stand on a high platform without a boundary wall or gateway, they have a curving shikhara over the sanctum with smaller shikharas clustered around it, and their halls run in a line from the entrance to the garbhagriha.

The four toranas that stand at the cardinal points of the Great Stupa were carved in the first century before Christ in the Satavahana period, and an inscription on one of them records the gift of ivory carvers of Vidisha.

Ajit Jogi became the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh when the state came into existence on 1 November 2000, and Dinesh Nandan Sahay was its first Governor.

The Kandariya Mahadeva is the largest and the most fully developed temple at Khajuraho, dedicated to Shiva and generally attributed to the reign of Vidyadhara in the first half of the eleventh century.

The relic caskets of Sariputta and Mahamoggallana, the two chief disciples of the Buddha, were recovered from Stupa 3 at Sanchi, which stands north-east of the Great Stupa and has a single torana.

The temple building and repair that Ahilyabai carried out from Maheshwar reached far beyond her own state, and the rebuilding of the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi in 1780 is the work most often asked.

Between 1956 and 2000 Madhya Pradesh was the largest state of India by area. When the Chhattisgarh region was separated in 2000, Madhya Pradesh fell to second place and Rajasthan became the largest state by area, a position it still holds.

Jabalpur is the defence production centre of Madhya Pradesh. The Gun Carriage Factory, the Vehicle Factory, the Ordnance Factory at Khamaria and the Grey Iron Foundry all stand in or near the city, and they made it the ordnance town of central India.

Mandu, in Dhar district, was the hill capital of the Malwa sultans, and its buildings include the Jahaz Mahal, set between two tanks so that it seems to float like a ship, the sloping-walled Hindola Mahal or swinging palace, the Jama Masjid, the pavilion of Rani Roopmati and the marble…

Gondi, spoken by the Gonds of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telangana, is a Dravidian language, which is striking because it is spoken deep in central India far from the south.

Vindhya Pradesh was formed of the princely states of the Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand region, was administered as a Part C state, and had its capital at Rewa, the seat of the largest of those states.

The temple at Bhojpur in Raisen district, with its single enormous linga cut from one stone, is attributed to the eleventh-century Paramara ruler Bhoj of Dhar, the same king remembered for his learning and for the lake he is said to have built at Bhopal.

The undivided Madhya Pradesh returned forty members to the Lok Sabha. After the reorganisation of 2000 eleven seats went to Chhattisgarh and twenty-nine remained with Madhya Pradesh, which also has eleven seats in the Rajya Sabha and an assembly of two hundred and thirty elected members.

The Udayagiri caves lie on a hill near Vidisha, not far from Sanchi, and belong to the Gupta period; the great relief of Vishnu as Varaha lifting the earth goddess is carved there, and an inscription of the reign of Chandragupta II records the visit of one of his officers.