Buddhist and Jain Art and Pilgrimage Sites: Exam Notes

The correct answer is B, Sarnath. After attaining enlightenment the Buddha walked to the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and preached to his first five disciples; the event is called the Dhammachakkappavattana, the turning of the wheel of law. Sarnath also holds the Dhamek Stupa and the Chaukhandi Stupa, and the Lion Capital of Ashoka that became the State Emblem of India was found there. Option A, Bodh Gaya in Bihar, is where he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and where the Mahabodhi Temple stands. Option C, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, is where he died, an event called the mahaparinirvana. Option D, Vaishali in Bihar, is where he preached his last sermon and where the second Buddhist council met, but not the first sermon.

The correct answer is B, Ashoka. The core of the Great Stupa at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, also called Stupa Number One, was raised in the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the third century before the common era; the Shungas later enlarged the dome and added the railing, and the four carved gateways or toranas were added in the Satavahana period. Option A, Chandragupta Maurya, was Ashoka's grandfather and no building at Sanchi is attributed to him. Option C, Kanishka, was the Kushana ruler under whom the Gandhara and Mathura schools flourished and the fourth Buddhist council was held, far from Sanchi. Option D, Harshavardhana, ruled in the seventh century of the common era, nearly a thousand years later. Remember that Sanchi shows the Buddha only through symbols, never as a human figure.

The correct answer is A, grey schist. The Gandhara school worked in the north-west, around Taxila and Peshawar, and used the bluish-grey schist of that region; its figures show Greco-Roman influence in the wavy hair, the heavy folds of the drapery and the muscular, realistic modelling. Option B, red sandstone, was the material of the Mathura school, which quarried the spotted red stone of Sikri near Mathura and produced robust indigenous figures of the Buddha, Jain tirthankaras and Hindu gods. Option C, white marble, is a later material associated with Jain temples such as Dilwara, while the Amaravati school of the Krishna valley used white limestone. Option D, black basalt, belongs mainly to the Pala sculpture of Bengal and Bihar. Gandhara and Mathura both flourished under the Kushanas and are credited with the first images of the Buddha in human form.

The correct answer is B, Maharashtra. The twenty-nine Ajanta caves are cut into a horseshoe-shaped cliff above the Waghora stream in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra and are a World Heritage Site. The earlier caves are Hinayana chaityas and viharas of the Satavahana age, and the later Mahayana caves of the Vakataka age carry the paintings of Padmapani and Vajrapani and scenes from the Jataka stories. Option A, Madhya Pradesh, has Sanchi, Bharhut and the painted Bagh caves, which are often confused with Ajanta. Option C, Karnataka, has the Jain centre of Shravanabelagola and the Badami caves. Option D, Odisha, has the Jain caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri and the Buddhist Diamond Triangle of Ratnagiri, Udayagiri and Lalitgiri. Ellora, with its Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves, is in Maharashtra as well.

The correct answer is A, Chavundaraya. The Gommateshwara image of the Jain saint Bahubali at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, about fifty-seven feet high and cut from a single block of granite on the Vindhyagiri hill, was raised by Chavundaraya, a minister and general of the Western Ganga kingdom. The Mahamastakabhisheka, the ceremonial anointing of the statue, is held there once in twelve years. Option B, Vimal Shah, built the Vimal Vasahi temple of Adinath at Dilwara on Mount Abu. Option C, Tejpal, along with his brother Vastupala, built the Luna Vasahi temple of Neminath at the same place. Option D, Kharavela, was the Chedi king of Kalinga who cut the Jain caves of Udayagiri in Odisha and left the Hathigumpha inscription. All four are Jain patrons, which is why the options are set together.

The correct answer is B, Mount Abu. The Dilwara group of five marble temples stands on Mount Abu in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan, in the Aravalli range, and belongs to the Solanki period; the Vimal Vasahi is dedicated to Adinath and the Luna Vasahi to Neminath, and both are famous for ceilings and pillars carved as fine as lace. Option A, Ranakpur, is also in Rajasthan and has the four-faced or Chaumukha temple of Adinath with its forest of carved pillars, but it is a separate site. Option C, Palitana on the Shatrunjaya hills in Gujarat, holds the largest cluster of Jain temples in India. Option D, Girnar near Junagadh in Gujarat, is another major Jain tirtha. Learning Dilwara and Ranakpur with Rajasthan and Palitana and Girnar with Gujarat settles most questions of this kind.

The correct answer is B, Udayagiri caves, Odisha. The Hathigumpha or elephant cave at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar carries the long Prakrit inscription of Kharavela, the Chedi or Mahameghavahana king of Kalinga, which records his campaigns and his patronage of Jainism; Udayagiri and the neighbouring Khandagiri form a Jain cave group. Option A, the Barabar caves in Bihar, are the oldest rock-cut caves in India, of the Mauryan period, and carry inscriptions of Ashoka and Dasharatha, not of Kharavela. Option C, the Ellora caves in Maharashtra, hold Buddhist, Hindu and Jain groups, the Jain caves being numbers 30 to 34. Option D, Sittanavasal in Tamil Nadu, is a Jain cave known for its early paintings. Keep Hathigumpha with Kharavela and Kalinga, just as the Junagadh rock carries both Ashoka and Rudradaman.

The correct answer is C, caves 30 to 34. The thirty-four caves at Ellora in Maharashtra are grouped by faith: caves 1 to 12 are Buddhist, caves 13 to 29 are Hindu, and caves 30 to 34 are Jain, the finest of the Jain group being Cave 32, the Indra Sabha, with its carved mandapa and the image of Mahavira. Option A names the Buddhist group, which includes Cave 10, the Vishvakarma chaitya, the only chaitya hall at Ellora. Option B names the Hindu group, which includes Cave 16, the rock-cut Kailasa temple carved in the reign of the Rashtrakuta king Krishna the First. Option D is not a group at all; those numbers fall inside the Hindu range. The site is a World Heritage Site and is valued precisely because three faiths were carved side by side in the same cliff.

The correct answer is A, Parasnath hill, Jharkhand. Sammed Shikharji stands on Parasnath hill in the Giridih district of Jharkhand, the highest hill in the state, and is held to be the place where twenty of the twenty-four tirthankaras attained liberation, which makes it the holiest of all Jain tirthas. Option B, Shatrunjaya hill in Gujarat, carries the Palitana temple cluster, the largest group of Jain temples in the country, but it is not the place of liberation of the tirthankaras. Option C, Vindhyagiri hill at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, carries the Gommateshwara statue of Bahubali. Option D is a distractor; the Chandragiri hill associated with Jainism is also at Shravanabelagola, not in Madhya Pradesh. Pavapuri in Bihar, where Mahavira attained nirvana, is a separate site.

The correct answer is B, anda. The anda, meaning the egg, is the solid hemispherical dome of a stupa, raised over the relic chamber, and it is the part that gives the stupa its shape. Option A, the harmika, is the small square railing or balcony placed on top of the dome, from which the mast rises. Option C, the medhi, is the drum or circular base on which the dome sits and which often carries a raised walkway. Option D, the vedika, is the stone railing around the stupa that encloses the pradakshina path for circumambulation, and the ornamental gateways in it are the toranas; above the harmika come the yashti, the mast, and the chhatra, the umbrellas. The Great Stupa at Sanchi shows every one of these parts clearly, which is why examiners use it as the standard example.