Ancient Indian History Mixed Practice — MCQs with Answers (Set 4)

The predominant view credits Pala king Gopala I with founding Odantapuri Mahavihara, though some sources instead credit his son Dharmapala.

Rangpur lies northwest of Lothal, and the two sites share closely related pottery styles, sometimes described together as a “Rangpur-Lothal” ceramic tradition.

Period III, roughly 1000-800 BCE, is Rao’s classification for the Lustrous Red Ware culture, following the Mature and Late Harappan periods (II) and a transition phase.

Rangpur showed Harappan-derived culture surviving roughly 300 years beyond the fall of the great Indus cities, directly challenging Wheeler’s theory of a sudden collapse.

Lustrous Red Ware is a burnished, glossy red pottery, often black-painted, that archaeologists use as a chronological marker across post-urban Gujarat sites.

Keralaputra and Chera name the same kingdom, just in different languages: Keralaputra is Ashoka’s Prakrit rendering, while Chera is the term used in Tamil and Sangam-age sources for the same dynasty.

The Tamil-Brahmi Jambai inscription names Neduman Anji as ‘Satiyaputo,’ directly linking the Sangam-age Athiyaman ruler to the title used in Ashoka’s edict. It also records his donation of a Jain shelter.

Most scholars today favour the Athiyaman dynasty, based on the Jambai inscription. But earlier historians proposed real alternatives, including the Kosar of Kongu, Satyamangalam near Coimbatore, and dynasties in Kerala like the Ays and Mushikas.

Rock Edict XIII, the Kalinga-remorse edict, names five Greek kings and reaches ‘the Cholas, the Pandyas, as far as Tamraparni’ in its southern clause — but does not name Satiyaputta or Keralaputra there.

Rock Edict II names all four southern neighbours, describing welfare measures like medical care and roadside wells that Ashoka extended to them.

The Yajurveda served as the guidebook for the Adhvaryu, the priest responsible for the practical work of a sacrifice: building the altar, preparing offerings, and executing each ritual step correctly, while other priests recited hymns.

Ancient texts describe as many as 86 shakhas of the Yajurveda, each transmitted by its own priestly lineage. Only a handful survive today: two Shukla recensions, and four Krishna recensions.

The Vajasaneyi Samhita is named after Vajasaneyi, the patronymic of the sage Yajnavalkya. Its own explanatory commentary forms a separate text, the Shatapatha Brahmana.

Krishna Yajurveda intermixes ritual mantras with explanatory prose commentary, while Shukla Yajurveda keeps the two clearly separate. Shukla’s principal text is the Vajasaneyi Samhita.

The older Pali verse core of the Jatakas likely dates to around the 3rd century BCE. The much later prose commentary, the Jatakatthakatha, is traditionally credited to the 5th-century-CE scholar Buddhaghosa.

Bharhut’s railings carry about 225 inscriptions in total, including 84 label inscriptions naming the exact scene depicted. About 27 of these have been matched to stories in the Pali Jataka Book.

The Jatakas mention voyages to Tamraparni (Sri Lanka) and Baveru (Babylonia), alongside Suvarnabhumi, a Southeast Asian region traditionally linked to Sumatra or the Thai-Myanmar coast.

The Jatakas describe kingship as originally an elective office, gradually becoming hereditary, generally passing to the eldest son. Even so, royal councillors called amatyas kept real influence in some stories.

The Mahavamsa places Ashoka as viceroy at Ujjain, while other texts like the Divyavadana instead describe him being sent to quell a revolt at Taxila — two separate, not identical, traditions.

Deimachus, sent by Antiochus I, succeeded Megasthenes as the Seleucid ambassador at the Mauryan court, this time under Bindusara.

Unlike Ashoka, whose edicts survive across the subcontinent, no inscription in Bindusara’s own name has ever been found.

Bindusara asked Antiochus I to send sweet wine, dried figs, and a sophist. Antiochus agreed to the wine and figs but said Greek law forbade selling a philosopher.

The main source for Vikramshila’s destruction is Taranatha, a Tibetan historian writing centuries later; the evidence here is less certain than for Nalanda’s destruction.

Atisha travelled to Tibet in 1042 CE at the invitation of the western Tibetan king Yeshe Od, who wanted help reforming Buddhist practice there.

Vikramshila had a college specifically devoted to Vajrayana/tantric Buddhist study, a genuine point of difference from Nalanda’s broader Mahayana-focused curriculum.