Famous Gurdwaras, Mosques, Churches and Fire Temples of India

The correct answer is B, Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Guru, under whom the Harmandir Sahib was built and who had the Adi Granth compiled and installed in it in 1604, appointing Baba Buddha as its first granthi. Option A, Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, founded the city of Amritsar and had the sacred tank excavated, so he is the natural trap: he made the site, his successor made the shrine and the scripture. Option C, Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru, built the Akal Takht facing the shrine in 1606 and introduced the two swords of spiritual and temporal authority. Option D, Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru, was executed at Delhi in 1675, where Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib now stands. The gold plating that gave the Golden Temple its popular name came much later, in the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the early nineteenth century.

The correct answer is A, Nanded in Maharashtra, where Guru Gobind Singh spent his last days in 1708 and where Takht Sri Hazur Sahib was raised. The five Takhts, or seats of Sikh religious authority, must be learnt as a set, because the question is usually set by swapping one place for another. Option B, Patna in Bihar, is the site of Takht Sri Patna Sahib, which marks the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh in 1666. Option C, Talwandi Sabo in Punjab, is Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, where Guru Gobind Singh had a recension of the Granth prepared. Option D, Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, is Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, where the Khalsa was founded in 1699. The fifth is the Akal Takht at Amritsar, built by Guru Hargobind in 1606. Note that three of the five are in Punjab, with one each in Bihar and Maharashtra.

The correct answer is B, Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and last human Guru of the Sikhs, who was born at Patna in 1666 while his father Guru Tegh Bahadur was travelling in the east. The gurdwara built on that site is Takht Sri Patna Sahib, one of the five Takhts, and the only one in Bihar. Option A, Guru Nanak, the first Guru, was born in 1469 at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, now Nankana Sahib in Pakistan, and spent his last years at Kartarpur, also in present-day Pakistan, which is reached through the corridor opened in 2019. Option C, Guru Angad, the second Guru, is associated with Khadur Sahib in Punjab and with the Gurmukhi script. Option D, Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, is associated with Goindwal Sahib and its baoli. Keep the birthplaces of the first and the tenth Guru apart, since that is the pairing most often tested.

The correct answer is B, St Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary whose body was brought to Goa and placed in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, where it is displayed for public veneration at long intervals. The basilica, completed in the opening years of the seventeenth century, is part of the Churches and Convents of Goa inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Option A, St Thomas the Apostle, is associated with the San Thome Basilica at Chennai, which stands over the tomb attributed to him. Option C, Vasco da Gama, died at Kochi and was first buried in St Francis Church there, the oldest European church in India, before his remains were taken to Portugal, so he is the strongest distractor in the set. Option D, St Philomena, gives her name to the neo-Gothic cathedral at Mysuru. Learn the Goan pair together: Bom Jesus for St Francis Xavier and the Se Cathedral for its Golden Bell.

The correct answer is A, St Francis Church at Kochi, built in 1503 by the Portuguese and therefore the oldest European church in India. Vasco da Gama died at Kochi in 1524 and was buried in this church, and his remains were moved to Portugal some years later, though the gravestone is still shown to visitors. The church itself passed from Portuguese to Dutch and then to British hands, which is why its history is a favourite with paper setters. Option B, the Se Cathedral in Old Goa, is later and is remembered as the largest church in Asia and for its Golden Bell. Option C, St Paul's Cathedral at Kolkata, was consecrated in the nineteenth century and is called the first episcopal church of the East. Option D, Medak Cathedral in Telangana, is a large twentieth-century Gothic revival church of the Church of South India. The date 1503 is the key to this question.

The correct answer is A, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, the saint who brought the Chishti order to India and settled at Ajmer, where his tomb became the best known dargah in the subcontinent; the annual Urs there draws pilgrims of every faith, and Mughal emperors from Akbar onwards made the journey. Option B, Nizamuddin Auliya, was a later Chishti saint of Delhi, and his dargah in the Nizamuddin area is among the most visited in the capital. Option C, Shaikh Salim Chishti, is buried in the marble tomb inside the courtyard of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, the saint whose blessing Akbar sought for an heir. Option D, Khwaja Bande Nawaz, whose full name is Sayyid Muhammad Hussaini Gesudaraz, is buried at Gulbarga in Karnataka. All four belong to the Chishti tradition, so fix each name against its town: Ajmer, Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri and Gulbarga.

The correct answer is B, the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, begun by Qutbuddin Aibak in the Qutb complex at Delhi at the end of the twelfth century and the earliest surviving mosque in the country. Its name means 'might of Islam', its screen of pointed arches was raised by masons trained in Indian temple technique, and the Iron Pillar stands in its courtyard. Option A, the Jama Masjid, is Shah Jahan's great mosque completed in the 1650s and formally called the Masjid-i-Jahan Numa; it is the largest mosque in India but far from the oldest. Option C, the Moti Masjid or Pearl Mosque, exists in two famous versions, Shah Jahan's in Agra Fort and Aurangzeb's in the Red Fort at Delhi. Option D, the Mecca Masjid at Hyderabad, was built by the Qutb Shahi rulers near the Charminar. Separately remember the Cheraman Juma Masjid at Kodungallur in Kerala, which tradition holds to be the first mosque built in India.

The correct answer is B, Udvada in Gujarat, where the Iranshah Atash Behram keeps the fire that Parsi tradition traces to the community which left Iran and landed on the Gujarat coast. An Atash Behram is the highest of the three grades of Zoroastrian fire temple, and of the nine in the world eight are in India, at Udvada, Navsari, Surat and Mumbai, with the ninth at Yazd in Iran. Option A, Navsari, does have an Atash Behram and is an important Parsi centre, but it is not the seat of the Iranshah fire. Option C, Sanjan, is the place where the migrants are said to have come ashore, which makes it the cleverest distractor, since the fire later moved through several places before reaching Udvada. Option D, Malabar Hill in Mumbai, is the site of the Towers of Silence, the community's traditional place for the disposal of the dead, not a fire temple. Non-Parsis are not admitted inside a fire temple.

The correct answer is A, Mattancherry in Kochi, Kerala, where the Paradesi Synagogue was built in 1568 beside the Mattancherry Palace, in the quarter long called Jew Town. It is famous for its floor of hand-painted blue Chinese tiles, each of them different, its Belgian glass chandeliers, its clock tower and the copper plates recording the privileges granted to the Jewish community of the Malabar coast. Option B, Byculla in Mumbai, belongs to the Bene Israel community, whose Gate of Mercy synagogue is the oldest in that city, while the Knesset Eliyahoo serves the Baghdadi Jews. Option C, Park Street in Kolkata, is near the Magen David and Beth El synagogues of the city's Baghdadi Jews. Option D, Thane, has a Bene Israel presence but no synagogue of this age. The three communities to remember are the Cochin Jews, the Bene Israel and the Baghdadi Jews.

The correct answer is A, Gujarat. Akbar raised the Buland Darwaza, the lofty southern gateway of the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, in 1601 to mark his conquest of Gujarat, and it ranks among the tallest gateways in the world, approached by a long flight of steps and faced in red sandstone inlaid with white marble. Inside the same courtyard stands the marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti, the saint whose blessing Akbar had sought for an heir. Option B, Mewar, was the kingdom of Rana Pratap, and Akbar's campaign there is remembered for the siege of Chittorgarh and the battle of Haldighati, not for this gateway. Option C, Bengal, was annexed earlier in Akbar's reign. Option D, Malwa, was taken in the 1560s. Fatehpur Sikri as a whole is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and the gateway's inscriptions carry sayings attributed to Jesus, a detail papers occasionally use.