Indian Culture MCQs

Notes:
Mahabalipuram Temples: Pallava dynasty: The five monolithic rathas are square or oblong in plan, pyramidal in elevation and varying in their overall dimensions. the Dharmaraja ratha constructed in Pallava style is the largest of all, having huge pillats in the portico with statue of lions, pyramidal tower and turret roof.

Notes:
Shintoism is a Japanese religion that originated in prehistoric times. The word “Shinto” literally means “the way of the gods”. Shinto is Japan’s indigenous belief system and predates historical records. The practices, attitudes, and institutions that make up Shinto revolve around the Japanese land and seasons and their relation with the human inhabitants. Shinto is classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion. Its practitioners often regard it as Japan’s indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Shinto has occupied an important national position for long periods in the history of Japan, particularly in recent times. As Japan expanded and became an empire in the 1900s, Shinto also became an important spiritual support mechanism for justifying Japanese expansion.

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Udyog Parva of Mahabharata deals with fruitless efforts to bring about peace between the Kurus and the Pandavas. There are 18 parvas.

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Sylheti is a language spoken by the Sylheti people, who are primarily found in the Sylhet Division of northeastern Bangladesh and in the adjacent parts of the Indian state of Assam. Sylheti is part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan language group and is closely related to Bengali, the national language of Bangladesh. It is written in the Bengali script and has its own distinctive vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Sylheti is spoken by around 15 million people and is an important language for commerce and education in the Sylhet region. It is also used as a literary language, and there is a rich tradition of Sylheti poetry, prose, and drama.

Notes:
Gundecha brothers are well known exponents of Dhrupad. They are classical singers of the dhrupad genre of the Dagar vani. From 1985 to 2019 the duo consisted of brothers Umakant Gundecha and Ramakant Gundecha and were awarded the Padma Shri for art for 2012.

Notes:
Nabakalebara is a festival observed in the Shree Jagannath Temple at Puri. It marks a symbolic recreation of wooden forms of the four deities of Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sudarshana at Jagannath temple. The occasion occurs every 12th or 19th year of the previous Nabakalebara. The event was in news because Department of Economic Affairs says that coins minted in July 2015, have Lord Jagannath”s depiction incorrect, and calls for more designs.

Notes:
Kovai Kora cotton is a blend of silk and cotton and Kora another product that is found more in the Sirumugai area of Tamil Nadu.  This art is mostly practised by people belonging to the Devanga community, who are involved mostly in weaving Kovai Kora cotton saris and they are the pioneers also in making the product. It received GI status in 2014.

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Siddhasena Divakara was a Digambara monk in the fifth century CE. He was a contemporary of Vikramaditya and wrote Nyayavatra, a work on pure logic.

Notes:
• The Leader was one of the most influential English-language newspapers in India during British Raj. It was founded by Madan Mohan Malviya.
• Bhupendranath Dutt served as the editor of the Yugantar newspaper till his arrest in 1907. It also published articles from a number of noted Bengali revolutionaries including Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Aurobindo Ghosh.
• Young India was a weekly paper or journal in English published by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from 1919 to 1931.

Notes:
The Kharoshi script is an ancient script used by the ancient Gandhara culture of South Asia primarily in modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan to write the Gandhari language (a dialect of Prakrit) and the Sanskrit language.