Static GK Quiz: World Religions: Founders, Holy Books and Places of Worship

The Tripitaka, meaning three baskets, is the Buddhist canon written in Pali and divided into the Vinaya Pitaka on monastic discipline, the Sutta Pitaka of the Buddha's discourses and the Abhidhamma Pitaka of philosophical analysis.

The correct answer is C, Sarnath, near Varanasi, where the Buddha preached to his first five disciples in the deer park; the event is called the Dharmachakrapravartana, the turning of the wheel of law, and it is from the Sarnath lion capital that India took its state emblem.

The correct answer is B, Zoroastrianism, the faith founded by Zoroaster in ancient Persia and followed in India by the Parsis, whose place of worship is the fire temple or agiary and whose scripture is the Zend Avesta.

The correct answer is C, Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Guru, who compiled the Adi Granth in 1604 and installed it in the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar.

The correct answer is A, Rishabhanatha, also called Adinath, the first of the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the present age, whose symbol is the bull and who is mentioned even in some Hindu texts.

The correct answer is B, agiary, the Parsi fire temple in which a consecrated flame is kept burning as the symbol of truth and purity; the highest grade of such a temple is called an Atash Behram, and most of them in India are in Gujarat and Mumbai, where Parsi…

The correct answer is B, Confucius, the Chinese teacher whose conversations and sayings were gathered by his disciples into the Analects, a work on duty, family order, learning and good government that shaped Chinese official life for centuries.

The migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in the year 622 is called the Hijra, and the Islamic lunar calendar counts its years from it, which is why its years are marked Hijri.

The correct answer is A, the Bahai faith, founded by Bahaullah in nineteenth century Persia, whose scripture is the Kitab-i-Aqdas and whose Indian house of worship is the marble building at New Delhi shaped like a lotus in bloom, open to people of every religion and holding no images.

The Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew scripture, is kept as a scroll in the synagogue and read aloud in worship; Judaism traces itself to Abraham and Moses and holds Jerusalem as its holy city.

The correct answer is B, Pavapuri, in Nalanda district of Bihar, where a marble temple stands in a lotus tank at the spot held to be the place of his nirvana; Diwali is observed by Jains as the anniversary of that event.