Indian Culture Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The correct match is a-3, b-4, c-2, d-5, e-1.

• A beret is a soft, round, flat-crowned hat (3).
• Stilettos are women's shoes with a long, thin high heel (4).
• Aviators are sunglasses with teardrop-shaped lenses, first made for pilots (2).
• A chignon is a hairstyle with the hair pinned in a knot at the nape (5).
• Brogues are men's leather shoes with decorative perforations (1).

The other codes swap the footwear items or put the chignon among the accessories other than hairstyles.

Answer: C

Stupas, chaityas and viharas are related to Buddhism.

A stupa is a hemispherical mound holding relics of the Buddha or a saint (as at Sanchi); a chaitya is a prayer hall with a stupa at one end (as at Karle); and a vihara is a monastery where monks lived (as at Ajanta and Nalanda). All three are the classic forms of Buddhist architecture.

Jain monks also built some rock-cut caves, and the Ajivikas used the Barabar caves, but the set of stupa, chaitya and vihara is identified with Buddhism, not with the Ajivika, Vaishnava or Shaiva sects.

Answer: C

Sujini is a type of embroidery.

Sujini is a traditional quilted embroidery of Bihar, especially of Muzaffarpur district, done by women who stitch layers of old cloth together with running stitches and embroider scenes of daily life and folk themes. Sujini embroidery has a Geographical Indication tag.

It is not glassware, metal craft or pottery.

Answer: C

The painting is at Ajanta.

The Bodhisattva Padmapani, holding a lotus, is one of the most celebrated paintings of the Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, painted in Cave 1 in the late fifth century during the Vakataka period.

The Bagh caves in Madhya Pradesh also have Buddhist murals, Ellora is famous mainly for its rock-cut sculpture and the Kailasa temple, and Badami for its Chalukyan cave temples. The Padmapani is at Ajanta.

Answer: B

The exponent of Hindustani music is Pandit Jasraj.

Pandit Jasraj (1930-2020) was a leading vocalist of the Mewati gharana of Hindustani classical music.

Syama Sastri and Thyagaraja were two of the Trinity of Carnatic music, and M. S. Subbulakshmi was a celebrated Carnatic vocalist, so all three belong to the south Indian tradition.

Hindustani music is the classical tradition of north India, and Carnatic music that of the south; the two share the system of ragas and talas but differ in style and repertoire.

Answer: C

The Upanishads mark the concluding part of Vedic literature.

Each Veda has four layers: the Samhitas (hymns), the Brahmanas (ritual texts), the Aranyakas (forest treatises) and the Upanishads (philosophical texts). Because the Upanishads come at the end, they are called Vedanta, the end of the Veda.

They are not the introductory or middle part; the Samhitas begin the corpus. 'Foreward' is not a part of it.

Answer: D

The correct match is Bihu - Assam.

Bihu is the folk dance of Assam, performed during the Bihu festivals, especially Bohag (Rongali) Bihu, which marks the Assamese new year and the start of the sowing season.

The other pairs are wrong. Lavani is a folk dance form of Maharashtra, not Tamil Nadu. Bharatanatyam is the classical dance of Tamil Nadu, while Odisha's classical dance is Odissi. Kathak is the classical dance of north India, especially Uttar Pradesh, while Karnataka is known for Yakshagana.

Answer: B

The six forms are Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Odissi, Kuchipudi and Manipuri.

The NCERT history textbook for Class VII, in its chapter on regional cultures, lists these six as the forms recognised as 'classical' after Independence. (The Sangeet Natak Akademi has since added others, such as Sattriya and Mohiniyattam, but none of the options includes them.)

The other options each contain a folk dance. Bihu is the folk dance of Assam, and Bhangra is the folk dance of Punjab. Neither was ever classed as a classical form, so every list containing one of them is wrong.

Answer: B

Cheraw is a dance of the people of Mizoram.

Cheraw, the bamboo dance, is a traditional Mizo dance in which dancers step in and out of pairs of bamboo poles that others clap together in rhythm. It is performed at festivals and is one of the best-known folk dances of north-east India.

Jharkhand, Manipur and Meghalaya have their own dances, such as Chhau in Jharkhand, Ras Lila in Manipur and Nongkrem in Meghalaya.

Answer: B

Cheraw uses bamboo sticks and drums.

Cheraw, often called the bamboo dance, is the best-known traditional dance of Mizoram. Men sit facing each other and tap long bamboo staves open and shut, against the ground and against each other, in time with the music, while women dance in and out between the moving staves. The rhythm is kept with drums and gongs.

Clay pots and wooden clubs, whistle and dhol, and flute are not the instruments of Cheraw. The bamboo sticks are essential, so only the options naming them can be right, and of those the dance is accompanied by drums rather than a flute.