Ancient Indian Empires Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The key's answer is Shriram Goyal.

The Mehrauli (iron pillar) inscription praises a king named Chandra. Most historians identify him with Chandragupta II (about 375-413 CE); Chandragupta I and Samudragupta have also been proposed. A scholarly note on the question says that Shriram Goyal is the scholar who identifies Chandra with Samudragupta, arguing that the king's original name was not Chandra and that Chandragupta II has no recorded success in Bengal, which the pillar inscription mentions.

I could not read Goyal's own publication, so this rests on that secondary note. I found nothing linking Parameshvarilal Gupta, Ram Sharan Sharma or Amiteshvar Jha to this particular identification, which agrees with the key.

Answer: B

The Damodarpur plates describe the uparika as a provincial official.

The copper plates from Damodarpur in Bengal, of the Gupta kings Kumaragupta I and Budhagupta, record land sales in the province (bhukti) of Pundravardhana. They show the bhukti governed by an uparika (uparika-maharaja), appointed by the emperor, who in turn appointed the officers of the districts (vishaya).

Court officials, village officials and trade officials appear in the plates too, under titles such as gramika, nagara-shreshthi and sarthavaha, but the uparika was the provincial governor.

Answer: A

The answer is Maitreya.

Gandhara sculptors made many images of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, usually shown standing as a princely figure with long hair tied in a loop and holding a water flask (kamandalu). Along with Siddhartha as a prince, he is the commonest Bodhisattva in Gandhara art.

Manjushri, Samantabhadra and Akashagarbha became important in later Mahayana and Vajrayana art, and are rare or absent in the Gandhara school.

Answer: C

The rhinoceros coin was issued by Kumaragupta I.

Kumaragupta I issued the most varied gold coinage of the Gupta kings, including the rare rhinoceros-slayer type, showing him on horseback attacking a rhinoceros, with the title khadga-trata. His other types include the peacock and elephant-rider issues.

Samudragupta's coins include the tiger-slayer and lyrist types, Chandragupta II's the lion-slayer type, and Skandagupta's the archer and king-and-Lakshmi types; none shows a rhinoceros.

Answer: A

The author is Harisena.

The Allahabad (Prayag) Prashasti, engraved on an Ashokan pillar, is a eulogy of Samudragupta composed by his court poet and minister Harisena, who held titles such as sandhivigrahika and mahadandanayaka. It describes Samudragupta's conquests in the north and his campaign in the south.

Kalidasa is linked with Chandragupta II's court, Shudraka wrote the play Mricchakatika, and Ravikirti composed the Aihole inscription of the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II.

Answer: D

The key's answer is Sabbakami.

About a century after the Buddha's death, the second council met at Vaishali under King Kalashoka to judge ten disputed practices of the Vajjian monks. The Ceylonese chronicles name the elder Sabbakami (Sarvakami), the most senior monk present, as its president.

Revata was a leading elder at the council who took a prominent part in the debate, which makes him the near miss, but he did not preside. Upagupta belongs to Ashoka's time, and Sambhuta was another elder who took part.

Answer: A

The earliest epigraphic evidence of sati is the Eran pillar inscription of Bhanugupta.

The Eran inscription of 510 CE, in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh, records that Goparaja, a chief who fought for Bhanugupta, was killed in battle, and that his devoted wife accompanied him onto the funeral pyre. It is the earliest dated record of the practice.

The Bilsad, Mathura and Allahabad inscriptions belong to earlier Gupta kings and record grants, genealogies and conquests; none mentions sati.

Answer: A

Amaravati Stupa was constructed in the period of the Satavahana.

The great stupa at Amaravati, near the Satavahana centre of Dhanyakataka on the Krishna, was begun earlier but was enlarged and given its famous carved limestone casing under the Satavahanas from about the second century BCE to the second century CE, with patronage from merchants and others. Its sculpture is one of the three great schools of early Indian art.

The Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras were the Tamil kingdoms of the far south; Amaravati lay in Satavahana territory in the Andhra region.

Answer: C

The only Vakataka king to take the title Samrat was Pravarsen I.

Pravarasena I, son of the dynasty's founder Vindhyashakti, expanded the kingdom widely and performed Vedic sacrifices including four ashvamedhas. He alone of the Vakatakas took the imperial title samrat; his successors used only maharaja.

Vindhyashakti founded the dynasty, Rudrasena I succeeded Pravarasena I, and Prithvishena I ruled later; none of them is recorded with the title samrat.

Answer: D

The script not used is Sharada.

Ashoka's inscriptions of the third century BC were written in the script suited to each region: Brahmi across most of India, Kharoshthi in the north-west (Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra), and Greek and Aramaic in Afghanistan (the Kandahar inscriptions).

Sharada developed from Brahmi much later, around the eighth century CE, and was used in Kashmir and the north-west. It did not exist in Ashoka's time, so it is the script that was never used for his edicts.