Who among the following was associated with the Mughal Court as a physician to Prince Dara Shikoh?

The correct answer is A, Hsuan Tsang. Hsuan Tsang, also written Hiuen Tsang or Xuanzang, reached India in the seventh century and spent years in the empire of Harshavardhana of Kannauj, who received him with honour; he studied at the monastery of Nalanda under Shilabhadra, attended the great religious assemblies at Kannauj and at Prayag, and recorded what he saw in the Si-Yu-Ki, or Records of the Western World. He is remembered as the prince of pilgrims. Option B is wrong because I-Tsing, spelt Etsing here, came later in the same century, after Harsha's death, and wrote chiefly on monastic discipline at Nalanda. Option C is wrong because Faxian, that is Fa-Hien, came far earlier, in the reign of Chandragupta the Second Vikramaditya of the Gupta dynasty. Option D is wrong because Ibn Battuta was not Chinese at all but a Moroccan judge of the fourteenth century who came in the reign of Muhammad bin Tughlaq.

The correct answer is C, Muhammad bin Tughlaq. Ibn Battuta, a qazi from Tangier in Morocco, reached Delhi in the 1330s, and the Sultan, impressed by his learning, appointed him qazi of the capital and later sent him as an envoy to the court of China. His book, the Rihla, written in Arabic, describes the Sultan's court, the postal relay system, the coconut and the betel leaf, and the movement of the capital, and it is a first hand source for the reign. Option A is wrong because Alauddin Khalji ruled at the turn of the fourteenth century, a generation before Ibn Battuta arrived, and is associated with market control regulations. Option B is wrong because Jalaluddin Khalji, the founder of that dynasty, ruled even earlier. Option D is wrong because Feroz Shah Tughlaq succeeded Muhammad bin Tughlaq; Ibn Battuta had left India before his reign began. Fix the pairing in memory as Ibn Battuta with Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Al-Biruni with Mahmud of Ghazni.

The correct answer is C, Al-Biruni. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni was born in Khwarezm, a region that lies in modern Uzbekistan, and came to India in the eleventh century in the train of Mahmud of Ghazni. He learned Sanskrit so that he could read Indian works himself and wrote in Arabic the study known as Kitab-ul-Hind or Tahqiq-i-Hind, covering religion, philosophy, astronomy, law and custom; his practice of stating a belief as its own believers hold it has earned him the title of founder of Indology. Option A is wrong because Abdur Razzaq Samarqandi, though he too came from Central Asia, arrived in the fifteenth century as the envoy of Shah Rukh to Vijayanagara. Option B is wrong because Ibn Battuta came from Morocco in the fourteenth century. Option D is wrong because Francois Bernier was a French physician of the seventeenth century, attached to the Mughal court. The century in the stem is the quickest way to eliminate three of the four.

The correct answer is D, Venice. Marco Polo belonged to a family of merchants of the Republic of Venice, then the leading trading city of the Mediterranean, and he travelled overland to the court of Kublai Khan in China, returning by sea at the end of the thirteenth century. On that return voyage he touched the Pandya country of southern India and wrote of its pearl fishery, its horses brought by sea and its temples, and his book of travels became Europe's chief source on Asia for two centuries. Option A is wrong because Zurich is a Swiss city with no part in this story. Option B is wrong because Paris was the capital of France, whose travellers to India, Tavernier, Bernier and Thevenot, came four centuries later. Option C is wrong because Istanbul, then Constantinople, was the Byzantine and later Ottoman capital, a city Marco Polo's trade passed through but not his home. Remember Venice for Marco Polo and Tangier in Morocco for Ibn Battuta.

The correct answer is A. After Alexander's death his general Seleucus Nicator took the eastern part of the empire, was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya and made peace with him, and sent Megasthenes to his court as ambassador. Megasthenes wrote Indica, which does not survive as a whole book but is known from the passages quoted by Arrian, Strabo and Diodorus; he described the walls and moat of Pataliputra, the king's routine, the administration of the city and a land free of famine, and he divided Indian society into seven classes, a division found in no Indian source. Option B is wrong because it was Deimachus who was sent to Bindusara and Dionysius, sent by Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, who came to Ashoka. Option C is wrong because Alexander fought Porus in person and sent no such envoy. Option D is wrong because Darius the Persian belongs to a much earlier age and sent no ambassador to Bimbisara.