History of Indian Art Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The keyed answer is the Chandella dynasty. The Chausath (sixty-four) Yogini temples are open circular shrines with a ring of cells for the yogini images and a central shrine, built between about the 9th and 11th centuries in central and eastern India.

The Gupta dynasty is ruled out on date, as Gupta temple architecture belongs to the 4th to 6th centuries and the yogini cult shrines came after it. The Pratihara and Solanki dynasties are known for temples of other regions, Rajasthan and Gujarat. The Bhedaghat temple is in the Jabalpur region, and the official key attributes it to the Chandellas, the nearest of the four dynasties named, though many writers credit the local Kalachuri rulers, who are not among the options.

Answer: C

Basawan was a court painter of the Mughal school. He worked under Akbar in the 16th century and is noted for painting that combines Persian forms with European style modelling and for his compositions in manuscripts such as the Hamzanama and the Akbarnama.

The Pahari and Rajasthani schools were regional schools of hill and Rajput courts, and the Pala school is the much earlier eastern Indian tradition of palm leaf and manuscript painting from the 8th to 12th centuries. None of them was Basawan's court school.

Answer: A

In the iconography of Vishnu, the gada (mace) is shown as Gada Devi, a female personification, and is represented as a female companion. Like the discus (Sudarshana Chakra), which is personified as Chakrapurusha, the weapon is given a human form in sculpture.

It is not a celestial being or a vehicle: Vishnu's vehicle is Garuda. The male personification is given to the chakra, so a male companion is the wrong choice for the gada.

Answer: A

The keyed chronological order of the Gupta temples is Cave (Temple) No. 17 at Sanchi, the Shiva temple at Bhumra, the Dasavatara temple at Deogarh, and the brick temple at Bhitargaon. The Sanchi temple is a flat roofed structure of the early 5th century, the Bhumra temple adds a shrine with a porch, Deogarh is the mature form with a tower (shikhara) from the early 6th century, and Bhitargaon is a brick temple with a tall tower.

The options that begin with Bhumra, Bhitargaon or Deogarh start from a more developed form than the plain Sanchi temple, so they do not give the keyed order.

Answer: D

Ladkhan Temple is at Aihole (i); Bhimarath, one of the Pancha Rathas, is at Mahabalipuram (iv); Vaital Deul is at Bhubaneswar (ii); and the Telika Mandir is at Gwalior (iii). So the code is a-i, b-iv, c-ii, d-iii.

The other codes mismatch the sites. For example, i ii iii iv places the Bhimarath at Bhubaneswar and the Telika Mandir at Mahabalipuram, which are wrong.

Answer: B

The ornate central pillar in the Diwan-i-Khas at Fatehpur Sikri bears the influence of the Gujarat style. Its capital is a ring of carved radiating brackets, and art historians connect the carving with the work of Gujarati craftsmen, whose bracketed balconies and minarets in Ahmedabad were the models. Rajasthan, Malwa and the Deccan had their own architectural styles, but they are not the source usually named for this pillar, so the keyed answer is Gujarat, option B.

Answer: A

The Parkham Yaksha, the large standing stone figure found at Parkham village near Mathura and kept in the Mathura Museum, is placed in the Mauryan period by the key, at about the third century BCE. It is one of the early monumental yaksha images of northern India, a massive frontal figure of the folk cult that Mauryan sculptors carved in stone. The Sunga period is later, with the Bharhut and Sanchi reliefs. The Kushan and Gupta periods are far later again, the Kushan period being the time of the great Mathura Buddha images and the Gupta of the refined Sarnath style, so options B, C and D are wrong.

Answer: D

At Mahabalipuram, the monolithic rock cut ratha with an apsidal plan is the Nakula-Sahadeva ratha, which has a rounded back end like the apse of a Buddhist chaitya hall. The Bhima ratha is a tall rectangular building with a barrel shaped roof, the Dharmaraja ratha is a square, pyramid roofed structure of several storeys, and the Draupadi ratha is a small square hut-like shrine. Since only the Nakula-Sahadeva ratha has the apsidal ground plan, option D is right and A, B and C are wrong.

Answer: B

The famous stone relief of Yakshi Chandra, usually called Chanda Yakshi, is from Bharhut. It is carved on a pillar of the stupa railing at Bharhut, a work of the Sunga period of the second century BCE, and it shows a female nature spirit standing under a tree. Sanchi has well known yakshi figures on its gateways, but not the one named Chanda. Amaravati is a later Andhra stupa site, and Udaygiri is known for its rock cut caves, so options A, C and D are wrong.

Answer: C

A painting of hunting the wild boar made in the late eighteenth century is attributed by the key to the Bundi school. Bundi, a Rajput centre in Rajasthan, was famous for its animated hunting scenes of boars, tigers and deer in bright colour and thick foliage. The Pal school is the early medieval Buddhist painting of eastern India, many centuries earlier. Garhwal and Guler are Pahari schools of the hills, known for love poetry, the life of Krishna and portraits, so options A, B and D do not fit and option C is keyed.