Sources and Early Indian History Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Makkhali Gosala, Nanda Vachchha and Kisa Samkichchha are the three leaders of the Ajivika sect named in the Pali sources, so (i), (ii) and (iii) is correct. Gosala is regarded as its founder or chief teacher, and the other two as his predecessors in the lineage.

Bhadda is not named among them, so the options including (iv), (iii) and (iv) or (iv) only, are wrong, and (i) and (ii) alone omits Kisa Samkichchha. The Ajivikas taught fatalism (niyati), holding that all things are determined, and the sect had patronage under Ashoka and Dasaratha Maurya.

Answer: C

The keyed answer is that (A) is true and (R) is false. A few Kharosthi inscriptions or objects are reported from Bengal, so (A) is accepted as true. But Kharosthi was the script of the north-west, of Gandhara and the Indus region, and Brahmi was the script in use in Bengal, so the claim that Kharosthi was widely used in Bengal is false.

The options saying both are true, or that (A) is false, are therefore wrong, since the key rejects (R).

Answer: C

As keyed, the Dasaratha Jataka is found sculptured in the stupa remains at Nagarjunakonda, so (ii) only is correct. Nagarjunakonda in the Krishna valley, built under the Ikshvakus, has many Jataka reliefs on its stupa casing.

The options naming Amaravati, Phanigiri or Gummididurru fail to match the keyed reading, because the combinations (i) and (iii), (iii) and (ii), and (iv) only each name a site other than, or in addition to, Nagarjunakonda.

Answer: B

Both statements are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). Under the Mitakshara school the father could divide the property among his sons in his lifetime, subject to rules on the ancestral property, so (A) is true. The Mitakshara also gives the son a right by birth in the ancestral property, so (R) is true.

The father's power to divide the property during his lifetime and the son's birth right over ancestral property are two separate rules of the Mitakshara, so (R) does not explain (A). The options calling either statement false are wrong.

Answer: C

Fragments of the lost drama Devi-Chandragupta by Vishakhadatta are preserved in the Shringara-Prakasha of Bhoja, which quotes passages from it, so (ii) only is correct.

The Katha-Saritsagara, a collection of tales by Somadeva, and the Harshacharita of Banabhatta are not the keyed sources for the fragments, and the Viddhashalabhanjika is a play of Rajashekhara. The combinations (i) and (iii), (ii) and (iv), and (iii) and (iv) each add one of these.

Answer: C

The official key marks the Mesolithic pair as the one that is not correct. The Lower and Upper Palaeolithic were hunting and gathering stages, and the Neolithic is the stage of food production, with farming and domestication. The Mesolithic is also a hunting and gathering stage, but it is a transitional one in which fishing, fowling, microlith technology and the first herding of animals appear at sites such as Bagor and Adamgarh, which is why the key does not treat the pair as correct. The answer is Mesolithic : Hunting, gathering, following the key.

Answer: A

Sarai Khola is a site near Taxila in Pakistan, Tarkhanwaladera is in the Ganganagar region of Rajasthan, Kunal is in Haryana and Shikarpur is in Gujarat (Kutch). So a goes with ii, b with iii, c with i and d with iv, which is option A, (ii) (iii) (i) (iv). Option B puts Sarai Khola in Haryana, option C gives Kunal to Rajasthan and Tarkhanwaladera to Gujarat, and option D puts Sarai Khola in Haryana and Kunal in Gujarat, so each of them has a wrong pair. The answer is option A.

Answer: B

The recensions are Shakala for the Rigveda, Vajasaneyi for the (Shukla) Yajurveda, Kauthuma for the Samaveda and Shaunaka for the Atharvaveda. So a goes with ii, b with i, c with iv and d with iii, which is option B, (ii) (i) (iv) (iii). Option A gives the Rigveda to Vajasaneyi, which is a Yajurveda school, and options C and D mismatch the Sama and Atharva recensions. The answer is option B.

Answer: A

The Digha Nikaya contains the Mahaparinibbana sutta, the Khuddaka Nikaya contains the Dhammapada, the Vinayapitaka contains the Khandhaka, and the Abhidhammapitaka contains the Kathavatthu. So a goes with ii, b with i, c with iv and d with iii, which is option A, (ii) (i) (iv) (iii). The other options pair the Dhammapada with the Digha Nikaya or the Kathavatthu with a Sutta text, which is wrong because the Kathavatthu is in the Abhidhamma. The answer is option A.

Answer: A

The Greek writer whose account is not associated with the preserved Indica of Megasthenes is Ktesias. Ktesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court, wrote his own earlier Indica from hearsay, before Megasthenes, so he is not one of the later writers who preserved the work of Megasthenes. The work of Megasthenes survives only in fragments quoted by later writers such as Strabo, Arrian and Pliny. The answer is Ktesius.