State Exams GK Questions 2026

Sammed Shikharji stands on Parasnath hill in the Giridih district of Jharkhand, the highest hill in the state, and is held to be the place where twenty of the twenty-four tirthankaras attained liberation, which makes it the holiest of all Jain tirthas.

The thirty-four caves at Ellora in Maharashtra are grouped by faith: caves 1 to 12 are Buddhist, caves 13 to 29 are Hindu, and caves 30 to 34 are Jain, the finest of the Jain group being Cave 32, the Indra Sabha, with its carved mandapa and the image of…

The Hathigumpha or elephant cave at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar carries the long Prakrit inscription of Kharavela, the Chedi or Mahameghavahana king of Kalinga, which records his campaigns and his patronage of Jainism; Udayagiri and the neighbouring Khandagiri form a Jain cave group.

The Dilwara group of five marble temples stands on Mount Abu in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan, in the Aravalli range, and belongs to the Solanki period; the Vimal Vasahi is dedicated to Adinath and the Luna Vasahi to Neminath, and both are famous for ceilings and pillars carved as…

The Gommateshwara image of the Jain saint Bahubali at Shravanabelagola in Karnataka, about fifty-seven feet high and cut from a single block of granite on the Vindhyagiri hill, was raised by Chavundaraya, a minister and general of the Western Ganga kingdom.

The twenty-nine Ajanta caves are cut into a horseshoe-shaped cliff above the Waghora stream in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra and are a World Heritage Site.

The Gandhara school worked in the north-west, around Taxila and Peshawar, and used the bluish-grey schist of that region; its figures show Greco-Roman influence in the wavy hair, the heavy folds of the drapery and the muscular, realistic modelling.

The core of the Great Stupa at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, also called Stupa Number One, was raised in the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the third century before the common era; the Shungas later enlarged the dome and added the railing, and the four carved gateways or…

After attaining enlightenment the Buddha walked to the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and preached to his first five disciples; the event is called the Dhammachakkappavattana, the turning of the wheel of law.

Jhajharia won the javelin throw gold at Athens in 2004 and again at Rio in 2016, becoming the first Indian Paralympian with two gold medals.

Usha comes from Payyoli in Kozhikode district of Kerala, and the speed with which she ran the sprints and the 400 metres hurdles earned her the name Payyoli Express; she is also called the Golden Girl of Indian athletics for her long run of Asian Games and Asian Championships titles.

Instituted in 1985 and named after the teacher of archery in the Mahabharata, it is conferred on coaches who have produced medal winners in international competition.

India beat the West Indies in the final at Lord's in 1983 with Kapil Dev as captain, and the tournament is also remembered for his unbeaten 175 against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells earlier in the competition.

Anand earned the Grandmaster title in 1988, the first Indian to do so, went on to become the world champion in 2000 and held the undisputed title from 2007 to 2013.

Padukone won the All England Open in 1980, the oldest and at that time the most prestigious badminton tournament in the world, and he was also the first Indian to be ranked world number one in the men's game.

Dhyan Chand played in the Indian hockey teams that won Olympic gold in 1928, 1932 and 1936, captaining the side in Berlin, and his control of the ball earned him the title of the wizard or the magician of hockey.

Malleswari won a bronze medal in the 69 kilogram weight class at Sydney in 2000 and so became the first Indian woman to win any Olympic medal, which is why she is remembered as the Iron Lady of Indian sport.

Bindra won the men's 10 metre air rifle shooting event at Beijing in 2008, and it remains India's first individual Olympic gold medal; he had already become a world champion in the same event in 2006.

India sent a hockey team to the Olympic Games for the first time in 1928 and won the gold medal without conceding a single goal in the tournament, beginning a run of six successive hockey golds that ran through 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952 and 1956.

Pritchard was the only competitor representing India at the Paris Games of 1900 and he finished second in both the 200 metres sprint and the 200 metres hurdles, so India's first two Olympic medals were silver and came in athletics.