Sources and Early Indian History Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The Vedic river Vipas is today's Beas, Parushni is the Ravi, Vitasta is the Jhelum and Sutudri is the Sutlej. That gives (a)-(iii), (b)-(ii), (c)-(i), (d)-(iv), which is code A. These identifications are the standard ones for the rivers of the Punjab named in the Rigveda. Code B pairs Vipas with Ravi, code C pairs Vipas with Jhelum and code D pairs Parushni with Sutlej, so each puts at least one river against the wrong modern name. The answer is (iii) (ii) (i) (iv).

Answer: C

The Boghaz Keui inscription of about 1380 BC records a treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma and the Mitanni king Mattiwaza, and it invokes the gods Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas as witnesses. These are Vedic deities, which is why the record matters for the date and movement of the Indo-Aryans. Options A and B include Agni, Surya or omit the Nasatyas, and option D names Dyaus, none of which appear in the treaty list. So the answer is Indra, Mitra, Varuna and Nasatyas, option C.

Answer: C

King Sudas of the Bharata clan belonged to the Tritsu people and led them in the Rigvedic wars. The Rigveda celebrates his victory in the battle of the Parushni, the Dasarajna battle, over a confederacy of ten kings. The defeated tribes included the Purus, Yadus, Turvasas, Anus and Druhyus, so Anu, Druhyu and Yadu are tribes he fought, not his own. The answer is Tritsu, option C.

Answer: D

Flake tools of the Levallois technique are characteristic of the Middle Pleistocene.

The Levallois technique prepares a core so that a flake of predetermined shape can be struck off it. It marks the Middle Palaeolithic stage of tool making, which the key places in the Middle Pleistocene.

The Lower Pleistocene is the age of the earliest, simple pebble and core tools, and the Holocene is the age of the microliths and the Neolithic, so neither is the age of prepared-core flake tools. The technique belongs to the Middle Palaeolithic of the Old World, and in India Levallois flakes appear at several sites in the Middle Pleistocene phase.

Answer: B

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

Sohagighat is a site explored by A.C.L. Carlleyle (4). Balathal is a site of the Ahar culture (3). Bhimbetka is the rock shelter site discovered by V.S. Wakankar (2). Burzahom is a Neolithic site of Kashmir (1).

Code (B) gives these four pairs. The other codes attach a site to the wrong explorer or culture. A.C.L. Carlleyle explored the rock shelters near Sohagighat in the nineteenth century, V.S. Wakankar discovered Bhimbetka in 1957, Balathal in Rajasthan is a site of the Ahar-Banas culture, and Burzahom near Srinagar has pit dwellings of the Kashmir Neolithic.

Answer: C

Shortughai is the Harappan trading port in north-east Afghanistan.

Shortughai lies on the Oxus in the north-east of Afghanistan near the lapis lazuli mines of Badakhshan, and it was a Harappan trading settlement set up to supply the stone.

Sutkagen Dor is on the Makran coast of Pakistan, Mundigak is in southern Afghanistan and is a pre-Harappan or contemporary settlement, and Nausharo is in Baluchistan. The settlement was far from the Indus valley, which is why it is taken to show the reach of Harappan trade for lapis lazuli.

Answer: B

The Mahavagga mentions the five hundred wives of Bimbisara.

The Mahavagga, a division of the Vinaya Pitaka, records a story in which Bimbisara's wives are numbered at five hundred in the account of the physician Jivaka.

The Mahavamsa and Dipavamsa are Sri Lankan chronicles and the Mahavastu is a text of the Lokottaravadins, and the key does not accept them. The Vinaya Pitaka lists many early disciples and patrons of the Buddha, and Bimbisara of Magadha is one of the most important. The Mahavagga is one of the oldest parts of it.

Answer: C

The key names the Vayu Purana as the text that replaces the Buddha by Krishna in the list of avataras.

In the lists of the ten avataras the Buddha usually appears as the ninth, and some Puranic lists substitute Krishna or Balarama for him. The key gives the Vayu Purana as the one in which this is done.

The Matsya and Bhagavata Puranas are listed with the Buddha among the avataras, so the key does not accept them.

Answer: D

Radiocarbon dating was used in India for the first time at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, where D.P. Agrawal and others set up the carbon-14 laboratory in the 1950s. Its early dates for sites such as the Harappan and Neolithic settlements shaped the chronology of Indian prehistory.

Deccan College in Pune is an important centre of archaeology and the School of Archaeology in New Delhi is a training institute, but neither was the first radiocarbon laboratory. The Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad began its own dating work later.

Answer: C

The first Palaeolithic tools in India were found at Pallavaram near Madras (Chennai) by Robert Bruce Foote in 1863. He picked up a hand-axe of quartzite there, and this discovery began the study of the Indian Stone Age.

Hallur and Tekkalkota in Karnataka and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh are known for later Neolithic, Megalithic and cave sites of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, but they were not the place of the first find.