Ancient Indian History MCQs

Notes:
According to Jain scriptures, Lord Mahavira attained the highly exalted omniscient state of Kaivalya in 599 BCE under a Sal tree near the village of Jrimbhikgrama. This site was located on the banks of the River Rijupalika in the kingdom of Magadha, which roughly corresponds to the modern Bihar. The site holds a special place for Jains as the exact spot where Mahavira attained supreme enlightenment through deep penance and meditation.

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Yajurveda is the book of sacrificial prayers.The world’s oldest prose literature of the Indo-Europeans is contained in Yajurveda.. There are two primary versions or Samhitas of the Yajurveda : Shukla(white) and Krishna(black) This implies that the Krishna Yajurveda includes the Brahmana prose discussions within the Samhita (no Brahman) while the Shukla Yajurveda has separately a Brahmana text, Shatapatha.

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The 10 Yamas are Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya (not stealing), Brahmacharya (marital fidelity and chastity), Kshama, Dhriti (fortitude), Daya (compassion), Arjava (sincerity and non-hypocrisy), Mitahara (measured diet).
The 10 Niyamas are Tapas (persistence), Santosa (contentment), Astikya (belief in self and God), Dana (generosity), Isvarpujana (worship of one’s God), Siddhanta Sravana (listening to scriptures), Mati (thinking and understanding), Japa (reciting prayers), Huta & Vrata. Huta means religious rituals and Vrata means fulfilling religious vows.

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Devi-Chandraguptam is the Sanskrit play of Vishakhadeva (Vishakhadatta). Its the story of Gupta King Ramagupta who decides to surrender his queen Dhruvadevi to a Shaka invader but his younger brother Chandragupta enters the enemy camp disguised as queen and kills the enemy. In the climax of the play, Chandragupta dethrones Ramagupta and marries Dhruvadevi. Kindly note that an 11th century Persian text Majmal-ut-Tawarikh includes some parts of the plot of this play.

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Chidambaram is the place for coronations of the kings.Patron of Chidambaram Kulothunga was a great devotee of the Chidambaram Temple to Lord Shiva in that city, and he celebrated his coronation there.

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Giak and Kiari are Neolithic sites located in Ladakh. The sites are on the left bank of the Indus River, about 13,000 feet above sea level. They are about 10 km apart.  In the early 1990s, a team of Japanese archaeologists led by Dr Masato Ota excavated the sites.

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Halivakara is a kind of tax in the Gupta era. Halivakara was a plow tax, paid by every cultivator owning a plow.Some of its taxes include Bali, Bhoga, etc.

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Dashkumarcharitam was composed by Dandin, who was a Sanskrit author of prose romances and expounder on poetics in the
6th-7th century. The book, Dashkumarcharitam is a prose romance in Sanskrit that describes the adventures of ten young men, the Kumaras, all of whom are either princes or sons of royal ministers, as narrated by the men themselves.

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The reign period of Rajaraja Chola I was 1014-1044 AD.

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One of the key aspects of the Mesolithic Age was the reduction in size of well-established tool types. The characteristic tools of this age were microliths (miniature stone tools usually made of crypto-crystalline silica, chalcedony, or chert, both of geometrical and non-geometrical shapes). They were not only used as tools in themselves but also to make composite tools, spearheads, arrowheads, and sickles after hafting them on wooden or bone handles.