Ancient Indian History Quiz

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Kanishka (flourished 1st-century CE) was the greatest king of the Kushan Dynasty. Nagarjuna (Born 150 CE, Buddhist thinker and philosopher); Asvagosha (Born 80 CE, Buddhist philosopher) and Vasumitra (Reign: 131–124 BCE, Fourth ruler of the Shunga Empire) were contemporaries of Kanishka.

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Ellora temples were built during the Rashtrakuta dynasty, which constructed part of the Hindu and Buddhist caves, and the Yadava dynasty, which constructed a number of the Jain caves.

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The title “Priyadasi” is thought to have been used by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka (269-233 BCE) in his inscriptions (the Edicts of Ashoka). Ashoka was referred to as “Beloved servant of the Gods” or Devanama Piyadassi in his inscriptions.

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The paintings in the Ajanta caves predominantly narrate the Jataka tales. These are Buddhist legends describing the previous births of the Buddha.

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Samudragupta (335-375 AD) of the Gupta dynasty is known as the Napoleon of India. Historian A V Smith called him so because of his great military conquests known from the ‘Prayag Prashati’ written by his courtier and poet Harisena, who also describes him as the hero of a hundred battles.

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A unique style of Buddhist sculpture called Gandhara art developed in ancient times in the Gandhara region of the Indian subcontinent. The Gandhara School of art had developed in the first century AD during the reign of Kushana emperor Kanishka.

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Mithila (in Bihar) was the home of the three scholar sages — Gargi, Maitreya and Kapila. It was the capital town of Raja Janak’s territory.

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Golconda and Ahmadnagar Sultanates did not fight for the Tungabhadra Doab.

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Prince Ellara was a member of the Tamil Chola dynasty, also known as “Manu Needhi Cholan”, who upon capturing the throne became king of the Anuradhapura Kingdom, in present-day Sri Lanka, from 205 BCE to 161 BCE.

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In the year 643 AD, Harsha held a great religious assembly in his capital at Kanauj. The purpose of the assembly was to highlight the teachings of Buddha. After the Kannauj Assembly was concluded, Hiuen-Tsang (Chinese Buddhist monk, traveler) was making preparations to go to his home, but Harsha invited him to attend another Assembly at Prayag.

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The greatest development of the Kushana period was in the field of art. Gandhara School of art had developed during the reign of Kushana emperor Kanishka.

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Chandra Gupta I, king of India (reigned 320 to 330 CE) and founder of the Gupta empire. He was the grandson of Sri Gupta, the first known ruler of the Gupta line.

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Copper was first used by mankind over 10,000 years ago. A copper pendant discovered in what is now northern Iraq has been dated about 8700 BC For nearly five millennia copper was the only metal known to man, and thus had all the metal applications.

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Charak was the famous court physician of Kanishka (Kushan dynasty). He was one of the principal contributors to Ayurveda. He is known as an editor of the medical treatise entitled Charaka Samhita, one of the foundational texts of classical Indian medicine and Ayurveda.

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The language used to write source materials in ancient times was Sanskrit. Sanskrit had been a language that was in vogue from the Vedic period. Sanskrit, which is considered an Indo-Aryan language, was the liturgical language of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Pali is considered a Prakrit language or a middle Indo-Aryan language.

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The most accurate description of The Mauryan monarchy under Ashoka was Enlightened despotism. The enlightened despots tried to institute enlightenment reforms but kept all of the political power without creating a constitution.

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The illustrious names of Aryabhatta and Varahamihir are associated with the age of the Guptas. During Gupta period education flourished and many great discoveries were made in these fields. Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, the two great mathematicians contributed to the field of Vedic Mathematics.

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Nalanda was a renowned Buddhist University in the ancient kingdom of Magadha in India. Buddhist texts describe it as a Mahavihara, a revered Buddhist monastery.

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Lord Buddha attained Nirvana at the age of 35 when he was alive at Bodh Gaya (Bihar). When he died, he entered nirvana, never to be born again. He is known to have attained Parinirvana after his death at Kushinagar. The Parinirvana Stupa is a Buddhist temple in Kushinagar, India which is said to be the place of death of Gautama Buddha.

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The Third Buddhist council was convened in about 247 BCE at Asokarama in Pataliputra, under the patronage of Emperor Ashoka.

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The Indus valley civilisation is also called the Harappan culture. The civilization was first identified in 1921 at Harappa in the Punjab region and then in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro (Mohenjodaro), near the Indus River in the Sindh (Sind) region. Both sites are in present-day Pakistan, in Punjab and Sindh provinces, respectively.

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The Indo-Aryan or Vedic period is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent.

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The words “Satyameva Jayate” in the State Emblem of India were taken from Mundaka Upanishad, meaning ‘Truth Alone Triumphs’.

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The earliest city discovered in India was Harappa in Punjab, in present-day Pakistan.

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Worship of stones, trees and animals is called nature worship. The Indus Valley people worshipped, Pasupati, stones, trees, animals and snakes.

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The excavated site of Lothal is the only port-town of the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is the massive dockyard which has helped make this place so important to international archaeology. It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements, and their effects on brick-built structures since the walls are of kiln-burnt bricks.

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Harappan people produced a large number of terracotta figurines, which were handmade. The figurines include humans, animals and birds. The terracotta figurines excavated at the Harappan site had images of oxen, buffaloes, pigs, goats, sheep and humpes bull. The cow was absent in the terracottas of the Indus civilization.

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Chanhu Daro is an archaeological site belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. The site is located 130 kilometers south of Mohenjo-Daro, in Sindh, Pakistan. It was the only Indus city without a citadel.

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The words Satyameva Jayate from Mundaka Upanishad, meaning ‘Truth Alone Triumphs’, are inscribed below the abacus in Devanagari script.

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Unlike Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization did not build large, monumental structures. There is no conclusive evidence of temples and the largest structures may be granaries. Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro may have been used for ritual purposes.

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Sanskrit literature broadly comprises texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit and later on in the language formally defined by Pāṇini usually called Classical Sanskrit. Meghadutam belongs to classical Sanskrit literature. It was written by Mahakavi Kalidas.

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The Buddha condemned the caste system, which he considered unjust. The Buddhist scriptures were available to all men and women. Buddhism encouraged the abolition of distinctions in society and strengthened the principle of social equality.

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‘Bull’ in Buddhism is associated with the birth of Buddha’s life. The five great events in Buddha’s life are associated with — Birth by Bull, Great Renunciation by Horse, Nirvana by Bodhi Tree, First Sermon by Dharmachakra or Wheel and Parinirvana or death by the stupa — of Buddha’s life. In Buddhist symbolism, the lotus represents the purity of the body, speech and mind.

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The Gandhara School of art had developed in the first century AD along with Mathura School during the reign of Kushana emperor Kanishka.

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Buddha Preaching the First Sermon at Sarnath 11th century. After attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya the Buddha went to Sarnath, and it was here that he preached his first discourse in the deer park to set in motion the ‘Wheel of the Dharma’.

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Mushika-vamsha is a Sanskrit dynastic chronicle composed in 11th century by poet Atula. It narrates the legendary history of the Mushika dynasty, which ruled the northern part of the present-day Kerala state of India.

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Chalukya ruler Pulkesin II checked Harshavardhana’s expedition in South India. According to its Ahole inscription, Pulkesin II had not let Harshavardhan come across the Narmada river.

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• Alberuni was a Persian scholar who came to India with Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017 CE.
• Fa-Hien was a Chinese pilgrim, who visited India in 399 CE, during the reign of Chandragupta-II. He came to India to study Buddhism.
• Hiuen Tsang was a Chinese Buddhist monk, visited India during Harsha Vardhana’s reign in 627 CE, in search of Buddhist scriptures.
• Megasthanes came to India in 302 BC as an ambassador for Seleucus, the representative in India from the greek Prince Alexander.

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Rajatarangini is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western Indian subcontinent, particularly the kings of early medieval Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE.

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Pulakeshin II was the most famous ruler of the Chalukya dynasty of Vatapi. During his reign, the Chalukya kingdom expanded to cover most of the Deccan region in peninsular India.

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Lothal was one of the southernmost cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, located in the Bhal region of Gujarāt. Construction of the city began around 2200 BCE. The dominant sight at Lothal is the massive dockyard which has helped make this place so important to international archaeology.

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A Buddha is one who has attained Bodhi; and by Bodhi is meant wisdom, an ideal state of intellectual and ethical perfection which can be achieved by man through purely human means. The term Buddha literally means enlightened one, a knower.

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Allahabad Pillar inscription is written in the more refined Gupta script (a later version of Brahmi) by the poet and minister, Harishena. The inscription is a panegyric praising Samudra Gupta and lists the political and military achievements of his reign including his expeditions to the south.

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The Vedas are known as ‘Shruti’ because earlier the people used to remember the Vedas by listening only i.e. they used to hear it through their ears. The ‘Shruti’ is a synonym word for ‘hearing’.

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Organised city life was the essential feature of the Indus Valley Civilisation. These cities contained well-organized wastewater drainage systems, trash collection systems, and possibly even public granaries and baths.

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Copper was the first metal used by the vedic people. During the Rig Vedic period only copper was used for which the general term – ‘ayas’ has been used. In a later period when iron came into use, copper and iron came to be known as ‘lohit ayas’ and ‘syam ayas’ respectively.

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He was called Siddhartha Gautama in his childhood. His father was King Suddhodana, leader of the Shakya Clan in what was the growing state of Kosala, and his mother was queen Maya.

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Fa-Hien was the first Chinese monk to travel to India in search of great Buddhist scriptures. He travelled to India during the term of Chandragupta II.

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Most houses of the Indus Valley Civilization were built of fired and mortared brick (Pucca bricks); some incorporated sun-dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures. Sites were often raised, or built on man-made hills. This could be to combat flooding in the nearby areas.

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It is believed that the Saka Era was founded by King Kanishka in 78 AD. Kanishka the Great, was the emperor of the Kushan dynasty.

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The Kalinga war was fought between Ashka and the state of Kalinga 261 BC. The massive bloodshed filled Ashoka with remorse and he adopted Buddhism under the Buddhist monk Upagupta and abandoned the policy of physical conquest and adopted the policy of cultural conquest.

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Upagupta was a Buddhist monk. According to some stories in the Sanskrit text Ashokavadana, he was the spiritual teacher of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka.

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Gupta Kingship was hereditary. The throne did not always go to the eldest son. The Guptas made munificent gifts to the brahmanas, who expressed their gratitude by comparing the king to different gods. King was looked upon as Vishnu, the protector and preserver.

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The ‘Kannauj assembly’ organised by Harsha (Harshavardhana) was held in honour of Chinese pilgrim Hieun Tsang in 643 AD. Harshavardhana was a Mahayana Buddhist. He organised this assembly to popularise the Mahayana sect of Buddhism.

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Copper was first used by mankind over 10,000 years ago. A copper pendant discovered in what is now northern Iraq has been dated about 8700 BC For nearly five millennia copper was the only metal known to man, and thus had all the metal applications.

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Fa-Hien was the first Chinese monk to travel to India in search of great Buddhist scriptures. He travelled to India during the term of Chandragupta II.

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Megasthenes was the Greek ambassador who visited India sometime between 302 BCE and 288 BCE. He was an ambassador of Seleucus Nicator I, in the court of Chandragupta Maurya. He described India in his book Indika.

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Hiuen Tsang was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who traveled to India in the seventh century and described the interaction between Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism during the reign of Harshavardhana.

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One of the most fascinating figures from the Indus Valley Civilization is the sculpture titled ‘Mother Goddess’. A large number of Mother Goddess terracotta figurines have been excavated from Mohenjo Daro are evidence of the fact that the Mother Goddess was the chief deity of the people of the Indus Valley civilization.

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The Battle of the Hydaspes was fought between Alexander the Great and King Porus in 326 BCE. It took place on the banks of the Jhelum River (known to the ancient Greeks as Hydaspes) in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent (modern-day Punjab, Pakistan).

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Seleucus Nicator was defeated by Chandragupta Maurya. Chandragupta extended the borders of the Maurya Empire toward Seleucid Persia, after defeating Seleucus in 305 BCE.

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There are archaeological evidence that there was an urban kind development during the Harappan civilization that is there where drainage systems, planned cities, massive structure and use of kiln bricks.

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After Alexander’s death, the Eastern part of his empire came under Seleucus Nicator. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander’s death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire.

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A granary has been found which the largest building of the Mohenjo-Daro is. The Great Granary is one of the significant buildings of the civilisation found in Mohenjo-Daro, along with the Great Bath. This granary is divided into 27 rooms of different sizes and shapes.

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The caste system in ancient India was used to establish separate classes of inhabitants based upon their social positions and employment functions in the community.