Who among the following ruled in India between 1266 and 1287?

The correct answer is B, Pali, the popular speech in which the Buddha is believed to have preached and in which the three baskets of the canon were put together, the Vinaya Pitaka on monastic discipline, the Sutta Pitaka on his discourses and the Abhidhamma Pitaka on philosophy. Option A is wrong as a description of the canon, although later Buddhist writers did use Sanskrit, as Ashvaghosha did in the Buddhacharita and the Mahayana schools did in their treatises. Option C is wrong because Ardhamagadhi Prakrit is the language of the Jain Agamas, the twelve Angas of the Jain canon. Option D is wrong because Tamil is the language of the Sangam works, including the Buddhist Tamil epic Manimekalai, which belongs to a different tradition. The language of each canon is a favourite single line question.

The correct answer is A, the Eran inscription. The record from Eran in present day Madhya Pradesh, of the time of Bhanugupta at the beginning of the sixth century, says that after a chief named Goparaja fell in battle his wife followed him on the funeral pyre, and this is the earliest epigraphic reference to the custom. Option B is wrong because the Mandasor inscription, composed by Vatsabhatti, records the building and repair of a sun temple by a guild of silk weavers. Option C is wrong because the Besnagar or Heliodorus pillar near Vidisha was set up by a Greek envoy who called himself a devotee of Vasudeva and is early evidence of Bhagavatism. Option D is wrong because the Hathigumpha inscription is the record of Kharavela of Kalinga. Eran is also known for a boar image inscription of the Huna chief Toramana.

The correct answer is B, Lumbini. The pillar stands at Rummindei in the Nepal terai, records that the king came in person in the twentieth year of his reign to worship at the spot where the Buddha was born, had a stone wall and a pillar set up, and reduced the tax of the village to an eighth, which makes it the firmest proof of the site. Option A is wrong because Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, is marked by the Mahabodhi temple of a later date. Option C is wrong because Sarnath, the site of the first sermon, is associated with the Ashokan pillar whose lion capital became the state emblem. Option D is wrong because Kushinagar is the place of the mahaparinirvana. These four sites of the life of the Buddha are asked together very often.

The correct answer is C, the thirteenth major rock edict. It gives the number of people killed, who died and who were carried away from Kalinga, says the king felt sorrow and remorse, and announces that he would seek conquest through dhamma rather than through war; it also names the Hellenistic kings to whom he sent envoys. Option A is wrong because the first major rock edict prohibits animal sacrifice and festive gatherings. Option B is wrong because the seventh pillar edict is a summary of his measures for dhamma towards the end of the reign. Option D is wrong because the Rummindei pillar at Lumbini commemorates his visit to the birthplace of the Buddha and the reduction of the village tax. Note that the Kalinga war is not mentioned in the edicts installed in Kalinga itself.

The correct answer is A. Tolkappiyam, ascribed to Tolkappiyar, is the oldest extant Tamil work and treats grammar along with the conventions of poetry, so it is the foundation of the whole Sangam corpus. Option B is wrong because the great works on medicine are the Charaka Samhita and, for surgery, the Sushruta Samhita, both in Sanskrit. Option C is wrong because astronomy belongs to the Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata and the Brihat Samhita and Panchasiddhantika of Varahamihira. Option D is wrong because statecraft is the subject of the Arthashastra of Kautilya. Keep the Sangam list in order: Tolkappiyam on grammar, the eight anthologies of the Ettutogai, the ten poems of the Pattuppattu, the Tirukkural among the minor works, and the twin epics Silappadikaram and Manimekalai.