Monuments of India and Their Builders: Facts and PYQs

The correct answer is C, New Delhi. The Bahai House of Worship, known the world over as the Lotus Temple, stands at Bahapur near Kalkaji in New Delhi. It was designed by the Iranian-born Canadian architect Fariborz Sahba in the shape of a half-open lotus with twenty-seven marble-clad petals arranged in nine groups, and it was opened to visitors in 1986. Like every Bahai house of worship it has nine sides and nine entrances and holds no idol, altar or pulpit. Option A is wrong because Mumbai's landmarks of this kind are the Gateway of India and the Haji Ali Dargah, not a Bahai temple. Option B is wrong because Chennai is known for the Kapaleeshwarar Temple and the San Thome Basilica. Option D is wrong because Kolkata's famous buildings are the Victoria Memorial and the Dakshineswar Kali Temple.

The correct answer is B, Ustad Ahmad Lahori. Shah Jahan raised the Taj Mahal over the grave of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and the court records name Ustad Ahmad Lahori as the chief architect of the work, which went on at Agra from about 1632 to 1653. Option A is wrong because Mirak Mirza Ghiyas was the Persian architect of Humayun's Tomb at Delhi, the garden tomb that the Taj Mahal is descended from, and he died long before Shah Jahan's reign. Option C is wrong because Lal Chand Ustad designed the Hawa Mahal at Jaipur for Sawai Pratap Singh in 1799, more than a century later and in a different kingdom. Option D is wrong because Ustad Isa Khan appears only in later legend and in no contemporary Mughal record, although his name is often repeated in popular accounts of the monument.

The correct answer is B, Qutb-ud-din Aibak. Aibak, the founder of the Slave or Mamluk dynasty of Delhi, laid the foundation of the Qutub Minar in 1199 and completed only its first storey. Option A is wrong because Iltutmish, his son-in-law and successor, carried the tower up to the fourth storey; he raised it, but he did not begin it, and this is exactly the distinction examiners test. Option C is wrong because Alauddin Khalji's work at the Qutub complex was the Alai Darwaza of 1311 and the unfinished Alai Minar, which he meant to be twice the height of the Qutub Minar. Option D is wrong because Firoz Shah Tughlaq came much later and only repaired the tower after it was struck by lightning, adding the fifth and topmost storey in the process.

The correct answer is B, Bega Begum, the widow of Humayun. Bega Begum, also called Haji Begum because she had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, had the tomb built at Delhi from about 1565 and engaged the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas for it. It is the earliest surviving charbagh tomb in India and the ancestor of the Taj Mahal, and it was the first Mughal building to use red sandstone with white marble inlay on this scale. Option A is wrong because Akbar was a boy when his father died and the credit in the chronicles goes to the widow, not the son. Option C is wrong because Nur Jahan belonged to Jahangir's reign two generations later and built the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah at Agra. Option D is wrong because Sher Shah Suri was Humayun's rival, and his own tomb stands at Sasaram in Bihar.

The correct answer is B, Muhammad Adil Shah. The Gol Gumbaz at Bijapur in Karnataka is the tomb of Muhammad Adil Shah of the Adil Shahi dynasty and was finished in about 1656. Its single chamber is covered by a dome of roughly forty-four metres in external diameter, among the largest masonry domes anywhere, and the whispering gallery below it carries sound right around the drum. Option A is wrong because Ibrahim Adil Shah II built the Ibrahim Rauza at Bijapur, a smaller and more finely carved tomb that is often called the Taj Mahal of the Deccan. Option C is wrong because Yusuf Adil Shah founded the dynasty in 1489 and did not build this tomb. Option D is wrong because Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah belonged to the rival Qutb Shahi house of Golconda and built the Charminar at Hyderabad.

The correct answer is B, Sawai Pratap Singh. The Hawa Mahal, the five-storeyed screen of pink sandstone pierced by hundreds of small windows so that royal women could watch processions in the street unseen, was built at Jaipur in 1799 by Sawai Pratap Singh, with Lal Chand Ustad as its architect. Option A is wrong because Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur itself in 1727 and built the Jantar Mantar observatories, the Jaigarh fort and Nahargarh, but he died decades before the Hawa Mahal was raised. Option C is wrong because Raja Man Singh I of Amber, a general of Akbar, built the Amber Fort nearby. Option D is wrong because Maharana Udai Singh II belonged to Mewar, where he founded Udaipur and began its City Palace, not to the Kachwaha house of Jaipur.

The correct answer is A, Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty. He built the Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha in the thirteenth century, designing the whole shrine as the chariot of the sun god with twelve pairs of carved stone wheels drawn by seven horses. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its surviving jagamohana is the tallest part left standing, the main tower having collapsed. Option B is wrong because Anantavarman Chodaganga Deva, an earlier king of the same dynasty, began the Jagannath temple at Puri. Option C is wrong because Krishnadevaraya ruled Vijayanagara in the south and is linked to the temples at Hampi, far from Odisha. Option D is wrong because Rajendra I was a Chola emperor whose great temple is at Gangaikonda Cholapuram in Tamil Nadu.

The correct answer is B, Rajaraja I. The Brihadeeswarar temple, also called the Rajarajeswaram, was completed by Rajaraja I at Thanjavur in about 1010 and is the first of the three Great Living Chola Temples inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its vimana rises to about sixty-six metres and the capstone over the sanctum is a single massive block of granite. Option A is wrong because Rajendra I, his son, built the temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram after his victorious march to the Ganga. Option C is wrong because Rajaraja II built the Airavatesvara temple at Darasuram, the third of the group and the smallest. Option D is wrong because Kulottunga I is remembered for the revenue survey of his reign and not for any of these temples, which is why his name is a common distractor.

The correct answer is B, Rashtrakuta. Cave 16 at Ellora in Maharashtra, the Kailasa temple, was cut under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I in the eighth century. It is a monolithic temple, excavated downward from the top of the hillside so that courtyard, gateway, shrine and tower were all carved out of one mass of rock rather than built up from blocks. Option A is wrong because the Chalukyas of Badami are associated with the cave temples at Badami and the group at Aihole and Pattadakal. Option C is wrong because the Pallavas worked at Mahabalipuram and Kanchipuram, where the Shore Temple and the Pancha Rathas stand. Option D is wrong because the Chandelas built the Khajuraho group in Madhya Pradesh, which is structural stone temple architecture and not rock-cut work.

The correct answer is B, George Wittet. The Gateway of India on the Apollo Bunder waterfront at Mumbai was designed by the Scottish architect George Wittet in a style that blends Gujarati work with Islamic arch forms, and it was completed in 1924 to commemorate the landing of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911. Wittet also designed the building that now houses the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in the same city. Option A is wrong because Edwin Lutyens planned New Delhi with Herbert Baker and designed Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate. Option C is wrong because Frederick William Stevens designed the Victoria Terminus, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, in Mumbai. Option D is wrong because William Emerson designed the Victoria Memorial at Kolkata, which was proposed by Lord Curzon.

The correct answer is B, Rana Kumbha. Rana Kumbha of Mewar raised the nine-storeyed Vijay Stambha inside Chittorgarh fort in about 1448 to mark his victory over Mahmud Khilji of Malwa, and he also built the great hill fort of Kumbhalgarh, whose outer wall is among the longest fortification walls in the world. Option A is wrong because Rana Sanga, his descendant, is remembered for the battle of Khanwa against Babur in 1527 rather than for building this tower. Option C is wrong because Maharana Pratap belongs to a later generation and to the battle of Haldighati of 1576, and he built no monument of this kind. Option D is wrong because Rao Jodha of the Rathore house founded Mehrangarh at Jodhpur in 1459, in Marwar and not in Mewar.