Man Kautuhal, a work on music, was prepared under the aegis of

The correct answer is D, Dheera Shankarabharanam. Both ragas use all seven natural (shuddha) notes, the same scale as the Western major scale.

In Hindustani music, Bilawal is one of the ten thaats in Pandit V. N. Bhatkhande's system and is taken as the basic scale, with every note in its natural form. In Carnatic music, Dheera Shankarabharanam is the 29th melakarta raga of the 72-melakarta system and uses exactly the same set of notes. That is why musicians treat the two as counterparts across the two traditions.

A is wrong: Nat Bhairavi (20th melakarta) has a flat Ga, Dha and Ni, which matches Asavari thaat, not Bilawal.

B is wrong: Kamavardhini (51st melakarta) has a flat Re and Dha with a sharp Ma, close to Purvi thaat.

C is wrong: Hanumatodi (8th melakarta) has flat Re, Ga, Dha and Ni, which corresponds to Bhairavi thaat.

Exam tip: Bilawal = Shankarabharanam (all natural notes); Kalyan = Mechakalyani; Bhairavi thaat = Hanumatodi.

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.

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 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 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.