Uttar Pradesh Mixed Quiz: Set 14

After attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, the Buddha walked to the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi, and preached to the five companions who had earlier left him.

Under the Uttar Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2000, the thirteen hill districts of the Kumaon and Garhwal divisions were separated to form Uttaranchal, the twenty-seventh state of India, on 9 November 2000, with Dehradun as its interim capital and the High Court at Nainital.

Of the four Kumbh sites, Nashik and the neighbouring Trimbakeshwar stand on the Godavari, which rises at Trimbakeshwar itself; the Nashik Kumbh comes when both Jupiter and the Sun are in Leo.

Akbar's conquest of Gujarat gave the empire its western ports, and the gateway raised at Fatehpur Sikri in 1576 to mark it is one of the tallest in India, its height increased by the long flight of steps it stands on.

At Prayagraj the Yamuna joins the Ganga, and tradition holds that the Saraswati flows there unseen, so the meeting point is called the Triveni Sangam, the braid of three streams.

Begum Hazrat Mahal, a wife of the deposed Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, had her young son Birjis Qadr proclaimed Nawab of Awadh in 1857 and led the resistance at Lucknow, where the British were besieged in the Residency and the Chief Commissioner Henry Lawrence was killed.

The Kumbh Mela was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017, and it is the element most often quoted from India on that list along with Ramlila, Vedic chanting, Kutiyattam, Chhau, Yoga and Navroz.

Kosala lay in the central and eastern plain of Uttar Pradesh with Shravasti as its capital and Saketa, the Ayodhya of today, as a second centre.

The Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi is the jyotirlinga of Uttar Pradesh. It stands in the old city close to the Ganga, a short walk from the Dashashwamedh ghat where the evening Ganga Aarti is held.

The empress Nur Jahan raised the tomb at Agra for her father Mirza Ghiyas Beg, who held the title Itmad ud Daulah and served as a minister of Jahangir.

All four Kumbh sites hold a full Kumbh once in about twelve years, but only the two on the Ganga, Prayagraj and Haridwar, also hold an Ardh Kumbh at the halfway point of about six years.

The Hindustan Republican Association, organised at Kanpur in 1924, needed funds for arms, and Bismil planned and led the stopping of a train carrying government money near Kakori, outside Lucknow, on 9 August 1925.

Mathura, on the right bank of the Yamuna, is revered as the place where Krishna was born in the prison of Kansa, and the Krishna Janmabhoomi complex marks the spot.

RDSO is the research, design and standards wing of the Indian Railways and works from Manak Nagar in Lucknow. It frames the technical standards for track, bridges, rolling stock, signalling and traction, tests new designs, and certifies vendors, so almost every railway specification in the country carries its stamp.

Maha Shivratri falls on the Chaturdashi of the dark half of Phalguna, which comes in February or March, and in Uttar Pradesh it is the closing bathing day of the Magh Mela at Prayagraj and the biggest night of the year at the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.

Ghaziabad, which lies on the edge of Delhi and is almost entirely built up, recorded the highest density of population among the districts of Uttar Pradesh in 2011, far above the state figure of 829 persons per square kilometre.

Akbar built the fort at the confluence in 1583 and renamed the town Illahabas, from which the name Allahabad came; the city was renamed Prayagraj in 2018.

The Magh Mela is held every year on the sands of the Sangam at Prayagraj, running from Paush Purnima to Mahashivratri, and pilgrims who live there through the month under a fixed discipline are called kalpvasis.

The Prayag Prashasti, also called the Allahabad pillar inscription, was composed in Sanskrit by Harisena, a minister and court poet of Samudragupta.

Lathmar Holi is played between Barsana, remembered as the village of Radha, and Nandgaon, remembered as the village of Krishna: the men of Nandgaon come to Barsana and the women of Barsana drive them back with sticks, which gives the festival its name.