Famous Temples and Pilgrimage Centres: Sites and Builders

The correct answer is A, Odisha. The Jagannath Temple stands at Puri on the Odisha coast and was built in the twelfth century by Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. Its Rath Yatra takes out three chariots, Nandighosa for Jagannath, Taladhwaja for Balabhadra and Darpadalana for Subhadra, and Puri is also one of the four Char Dham attributed to Adi Shankaracharya. Option B, West Bengal, is wrong; its best known shrines are Kalighat and the Dakshineswar temple at Kolkata, not a Jagannath temple of this standing. Option C, Bihar, is wrong because its great pilgrimage centre is Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Option D, Jharkhand, is wrong although it does hold the Baidyanath Jyotirlinga at Deoghar; candidates who remember only that the temple lies in eastern India often pick one of these three neighbours.

The correct answer is B, Rajaraja I. The Brihadisvara or Rajarajesvaram temple at Thanjavur was completed about 1010 CE by the Chola king Rajaraja I, and it is the oldest of the three shrines inscribed by UNESCO as the Great Living Chola Temples. Its towering vimana makes it the classic example of mature Dravida architecture. Option A, Rajendra I, is the most tempting distractor because he was Rajaraja's son and did build a comparable temple, but his was the Brihadisvara at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the third site in the same World Heritage group. Option C, Narasimhavarman II or Rajasimha, is wrong; he was a Pallava and is remembered for the Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram and the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram. Option D, Krishna I, is wrong because this Rashtrakuta king had the rock-cut Kailasa temple carved at Ellora.

The correct answer is D, Kedarnath. The four Char Dham placed in the four directions are Badrinath in the north, Dwarka in the west, Puri in the east and Rameswaram in the south, so Kedarnath does not belong to this set. Kedarnath is instead one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and one of the four shrines of the Chota Char Dham of Uttarakhand, along with Yamunotri, Gangotri and Badrinath, which is where the confusion arises. Options A, B and C are all genuine members of the pan-India circuit: Badrinath on the Alaknanda in Uttarakhand, Dwarka on the Gujarat coast and the Jagannath temple at Puri in Odisha. The trap in this question is the overlap of the two circuits, because Badrinath appears in both, so learn the southern member Rameswaram as the marker of the national Char Dham.

The correct answer is A, Nilachal hill. The Kamakhya Temple rises on the Nilachal or Nilachala hill in Guwahati, Assam, overlooking the Brahmaputra, and its annual Ambubachi Mela draws pilgrims from across eastern India. Option B, the Trikuta hills, is wrong because they hold the cave shrine of Vaishno Devi near Katra in Jammu and Kashmir, which is also a goddess shrine and therefore the likeliest wrong choice. Option C, Girnar, is wrong; this hill near Junagadh in Gujarat is known for its Jain temples and for the rock on which Ashoka's edicts were engraved. Option D, Shatrunjaya, is wrong because that hill at Palitana in Gujarat carries hundreds of Jain temples. Remember Nilachal with Kamakhya and Trikuta with Vaishno Devi as a pair of contrasts.

The correct answer is B, Narasimhadeva I. The Konark Sun Temple in Odisha, conceived as the chariot of the sun god with carved wheels and horses, was raised in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, and it was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1984. Option A, Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva, is wrong but is the hardest distractor because he belonged to the same dynasty and built the Jagannath temple at Puri a century earlier. Option C, Kapilendra Deva, is wrong; he founded the later Gajapati dynasty of Odisha and is not credited with Konark. Option D, Bhima I, is wrong because this Solanki king of Gujarat is associated with the Sun Temple at Modhera, another sun shrine, which makes him a plausible but incorrect answer for anyone who matches only the deity rather than the region.

The correct answer is C, Rajasthan. The Dilwara group of five Jain temples stands at Mount Abu in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan and was built in the Solanki period, Vimal Vasahi being dedicated to Adinath and Luna Vasahi to Neminath; the ceilings and pillars are the finest marble work of Jain architecture in India. Option A, Gujarat, is wrong although it is the most tempting answer, since Gujarat holds the Jain hill of Shatrunjaya at Palitana and the Girnar temples, and the Solanki rulers were based there. Option B, Madhya Pradesh, is wrong; its famous group is the Nagara-style temples of Khajuraho, which include Jain shrines but are not Dilwara. Option D, Karnataka, is wrong because its great Jain centre is Shravanabelagola with the Gommateshwara statue.

The correct answer is C, Bahubali. The Gommateshwara statue at Shravanabelagola is a monolithic image of Bahubali, son of the first Tirthankara, and it was raised by Chavundaraya, a minister of the Western Ganga kingdom; the Mahamastakabhisheka, in which the statue is anointed, is held once in twelve years. Option A, Mahavira, is wrong; he was the twenty-fourth Tirthankara and the historical teacher of Jainism, but Bahubali was not a Tirthankara at all, which is exactly the distinction being tested. Option B, Parshvanatha, is wrong because he was the twenty-third Tirthankara, usually shown with a serpent hood. Option D, Adinatha or Rishabhanatha, is wrong, though he is Bahubali's father and the first Tirthankara, and the Vimal Vasahi temple at Dilwara is dedicated to him. Note also that the statue stands at Shravanabelagola in the Hassan district of Karnataka, not at Mount Abu or Palitana, so the site and the figure are often tested together in one question.

The correct answer is B, the Ramanathaswamy Temple at Rameswaram. Its third corridor, lined with more than a thousand carved pillars, is the longest temple corridor in India, and the temple is doubly important for examinations because it is both a Jyotirlinga and the southern member of the Char Dham. Option A, the Meenakshi Temple at Madurai, is wrong but close, since it is famous for its hall of a thousand pillars and for its towering gopurams on the Vaigai. Option C, the Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur, is wrong; its distinction is the height of its vimana and its Chola authorship, not a corridor. Option D, the Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar, is wrong because it is a Nagara-style shrine of the Somavamsi period and such long pillared corridors belong to the southern tradition.

The correct answer is B, Guru Arjan Dev. The fifth Guru compiled the Adi Granth and installed it in the Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar in 1604, Baba Buddha being appointed its first Granthi. Option A, Guru Ram Das, is the strongest distractor because the fourth Guru founded the city and had the Amrit Sarovar tank excavated, so the site is his work even though the scripture was installed by his successor. Option C, Guru Hargobind, is wrong; the sixth Guru built the Akal Takht facing the Harmandir Sahib and introduced the idea of temporal authority alongside the spiritual. Option D, Guru Tegh Bahadur, is wrong because the ninth Guru belongs to a later period and is remembered for his martyrdom at Delhi. Keep the chain in order: Ram Das founds, Arjan Dev completes and installs, Hargobind fortifies.

The correct answer is B, his enlightenment. Bodh Gaya in Bihar is where Siddhartha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, and the Mahabodhi Temple complex that grew around the spot, with the Vajrasana or diamond throne beside the tree, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2002. Option A is wrong because the first sermon, the Dhammachakkappavattana, was delivered at Sarnath near Varanasi in the deer park. Option C is wrong since the Buddha was born at Lumbini in present-day Nepal, which is the fourth of the great Buddhist sites. Option D is wrong because the mahaparinirvana took place at Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh. The four events and their four places are asked together very often, so fix the sequence of birth, enlightenment, sermon and passing against Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar.