History & National Movement

Correct answer: (B) 2 and 3 only

Shakyamuni ('sage of the Shakya clan') and Tathagata ('one who has thus come/gone') are both well-known epithets of Gautama Buddha, so statements 2 and 3 are correct. 'Nayaputta' (Nataputta/Nigantha Nataputta) was the epithet of Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder-teacher of Jainism, not of the Buddha, so statement 1 is wrong. Hence only 2 and 3 apply.

Correct answer: (B) 2 and 3

Inamgaon in Maharashtra is a well-known Chalcolithic (Jorwe culture) settlement, and Mangadu in Kerala is a megalithic burial site, so rows 2 and 3 are correctly matched. Chandraketugarh, an ancient trading/port town, is in West Bengal, not Odisha, and Salihundam in Andhra Pradesh is a Buddhist stupa site, not rock-cut cave shrines, so rows 1 and 4 are wrong. Therefore only 2 and 3 are correct.

Correct answer: (A) Krishnadevaraya

Krishnadevaraya, the Vijayanagara emperor of the Tuluva dynasty, granted the Portuguese permission to build a fort at Bhatkal (on the Kanara coast), reflecting his cordial trade relations with them for horses and firearms. Narasimha Saluva belonged to an earlier Vijayanagara dynasty, while Muhammad Shah III (Bahmani) and Yusuf Adil Shah (Bijapur) were Deccan sultans not associated with this grant. Hence the answer is Krishnadevaraya.

Correct answer: (B) 2 only

Statement 1 is wrong because the Upanishads do contain parables and dialogues used to teach abstract ideas (for example the Svetaketu-Uddalaka dialogue and the story of Satyakama Jabala). Statement 2 is correct: the Upanishads belong to the later Vedic period (roughly 800-500 BCE) and were composed earlier than the Puranas, which are post-Vedic works of the early centuries CE. Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Correct answer: (C) Sarvastivada Vinaya

Sanghabhuti (Sanghabhadra), an Indian Buddhist monk who went to China at the close of the fourth century CE, is known for his commentary on the Sarvastivada Vinaya, the monastic disciplinary code of the Sarvastivada school. He is associated with translating/annotating this Vinaya tradition rather than the Prajnaparamita, Visuddhimagga, or Lalitavistara. Hence the answer is the Sarvastivada Vinaya.

Correct answer: (B) Only two

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was founded by Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1951) and the Congress for Democracy by Jagjivan Ram (1977), so pairs 1 and 3 are correctly matched. Pairs 2 and 4 are wrong: C. Rajagopalachari was linked to the Swatantra Party (which he founded), not the Socialist Party, while Acharya Narendra Dev was a Socialist Party leader, not of Swatantra. Hence only two pairs are correct.

Correct answer: (A) Andhra

The answer is 'Andhra'. Dhanyakataka (Dharanikota, near Amaravati on the Krishna river in present-day Andhra Pradesh) was a major Buddhist centre associated with the Mahasanghika school and the Amaravati stupa. It is also linked in tradition to the Kalachakra teaching. It lay in the Andhra region, not Gandhara, Kalinga or Magadha.

Correct answer: (B) Only two

The answer is 'Only two'. Stupas were repositories of relics (of the Buddha or monks) and served as votive and commemorative structures in Buddhist tradition, so statements 2 and 3 are correct. Statement 1 is false because the stupa form is not Buddhist in origin; it evolved from pre-Buddhist funerary burial mounds (tumuli) and was later adopted and developed by Buddhism. Hence two statements are correct.

Correct answer: (B) ports

The answer is 'ports'. Korkai (Pandya pearl-fishery port), Poompuhar/Kaveripattinam (the great Chola port at the Kaveri mouth) and Muchiri/Muziris (the Chera port on the Kerala coast famed for Roman trade) were all celebrated ancient South Indian ports. They were hubs of maritime and Indo-Roman commerce, not iron-making centres or Jain shrines.

Correct answer: (D) A king defeated in a battle committing ritual suicide by starving himself to death

The answer is 'A king defeated in a battle committing ritual suicide by starving himself to death'. In Sangam literature, 'Vattakirutal' refers to the practice whereby a defeated king, having lost honour in battle, sat facing north and fasted unto death as a form of ritual self-immolation by starvation. It is a term tied to the heroic and honour code of the Tamil warrior tradition.

Correct answer: (D) None

The answer is 'None'. The Hoysalas, Gahadavalas, Kakatiyas and Yadavas (Seunas) all rose to prominence much later, roughly in the 11th to 13th centuries CE, not in the early eighth century AD. None of these four dynasties established their kingdoms in the early 8th century, so the correct count is none.

Correct answer: (B) Only two

The answer is 'Only two'. Hammira-Mahakavya was written by Nayachandra Suri, and Nitivakyamrita by Somadeva Suri, so those two pairs are correctly matched. The other two are wrong: Devichandragupta was authored by Vishakhadatta (not Bilhana, who wrote Vikramankadevacharita), and Milinda-panha (a Pali dialogue between King Menander and monk Nagasena) is not the work of Nagarjuna. Hence two pairs match.

Correct answer: (B) Jainism

The answer is 'Jainism'. The belief that souls (jiva) reside not only in animals and plants but even in earth, rocks, water, fire and air reflects the Jain doctrine that all things possess life/soul, underpinning its extreme emphasis on non-violence (ahimsa) toward every living and elemental form. This animistic-style attribution of souls to natural objects is distinctively Jain.

Correct answer: (A) Devaraya I

The answer is 'Devaraya I'. The Vijayanagara ruler Devaraya I built a dam across the Tungabhadra river and a long canal-cum-aqueduct to carry water several kilometres to the capital Hampi/Vijayanagara, improving the city's water supply and irrigation. This early 15th-century hydraulic project is attributed to him, not to Mallikarjuna, Vira Vijaya or Virupaksha.

Correct answer: (C) Bahadur Shah

The answer is 'Bahadur Shah'. Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, pressed by the Mughal emperor Humayun, entered into a treaty with the Portuguese and ceded Diu to them (Treaty of 1535), allowing them to build a fort there. Neither Ahmad Shah (founder of Ahmedabad) nor Mahmud Begarha surrendered Diu; it was Bahadur Shah.

Correct answer: (D) The Charter Act of 1833

The answer is 'The Charter Act of 1833'. This Act made Lord William Bentinck the first Governor-General of India, redesignating the Governor-General of Bengal as the Governor-General of India and centralizing legislative power. The Regulating Act (1773) had only created the Governor-General of Bengal, while Pitt's India Act (1784) and the Charter Act of 1793 did not make this change.

Correct answer: (A) archaeological excavations

The answer is archaeological excavations. Alexander Rea, A. H. Longhurst, Robert Sewell, James Burgess and Walter Elliot were all antiquarians and officers associated with the Archaeological Survey of India and the archaeological documentation and excavation of ancient sites in the 19th-early 20th centuries (Robert Sewell wrote on Vijayanagara, Burgess documented cave temples). They were not linked to the press, churches or railways.

Correct answer: (A) Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct and Statement-II is the correct explanation for Statement-I

Both statements are correct and Statement-II correctly explains Statement-I. National Handloom Day is observed on 7th August, and the date was deliberately chosen to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement, which was formally launched on 7 August 1905 at the Calcutta Town Hall in response to the partition of Bengal. The Swadeshi movement's promotion of indigenous handloom is exactly why this date was selected, so II is the correct explanation for I.