Indian History-1 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gupta

The Gupta age around 1500 years ago was truly a golden age as far as achievements in literature, architecture etc. were concerned. The poet Kalidasa lived in this age, and the iron pillar which still stands in the open today as it has for hundreds of years without rusting was built then.

It is said that people could leave their houses wide open for months while they went elsewhere and come back to find their possessions intact.

Answer: Aryan invasion theory

The theory that Aryans invaded India around 1500 B.C. and displaced the previous Dravidian civilisation has been laid to rest. There never was any real proof in support of the theory - it was a theory based almost entirely on conjecture. Recent satellite, archaeological and genetic evidence (gene tests have shown that all Indians of all social classes all over India are basically the same race) has finally been disproved. (Refer to Subhash Kak's 'Is the Aryan-Dravidian Binary Valid?', Navaratna Rajaram's 'The Aryan Invasion of India: the Myth and the Truth' and David Frawley's 'The Myth of the Aryan Invasion of India').

Answer: Mamluk

Iltutmish is accepted as the emperor under whose reign the Qutb Minar, started by his predecessor Qutb ud din Aibak (whose slave he was before he became emperor), was completed.

Answer: Mohammad bin Tughlaq

Mohammad bin Tughlaq belonged to the Tughlaq dynasty. He is best known for mad schemes like moving the capital from Delhi to Daulatabad (not such a bad idea, except that he tried to move the whole population of Delhi to the newly built city) and trying to introduce new currency (again not such a bad idea- only he tried confiscating all the old currency first!).

Answer: Chola

Located in Tanjore in Tamil Nadu (my home state) in S. India. Built by Rajendra Chola.

Answer: Tipu Sultan

Tipu Sultan ruled in Mysore, in present day Karnataka. He used rockets in warfare against the British. The rockets were not perfected, and killed as many of his own soldiers as of British soldiers. So he abandoned the idea of using them. This was in the 1790s - a little after the French Revolution, way before rockets were used in war by Europeans.

Answer: Seleukos Nikator

Chandragupta Maurya was the first emperor of the Maurya dynasty. Alexander invaded the Punjab in 324 BC. He died shortly after in Mesopotamia. After Alexander's death Seleukos took control of the eastern part of his empire and tried invading India again but was repelled by Chandragupta.

He ceded parts of his empire (including Gandhara- present day Afghanistan) to the Mauryan empire. The marriage between the Maurya emperor and the general's daughter (Helen?) was a political move, to ensure an alliance with the Greeks.

Answer: Subhash Chandra Bose

He died in a plane crash. The vast majority of Indians, however, knew that there was no point in swapping British for Japanese rule and fought alongside the British to defend India.

Answer: Tantia Tope

The 1857 Mutiny (Sepoy Mutiny or First Indian War of Independence) which started in Meerut in present day Uttar Pradesh was the first concerted attempt to throw the British out of India. It failed because of poor coordination and because it did not involve large parts of S.

India. Jhansi Rani Lakshmibhai was one of the bravest fighters in the mutiny. The mutiny was the starting point of the struggle which culminated in India's independence in 1947.

Answer: Chandragupta Vikramaditya

Chandragupta Vikramaditya was a Gupta emperor. Kalidasa was one of the Navaratnas ('nine gems') of his court. The literary works 'Shakuntala', 'Meghadoota' etc. were by Kalidasa.

Answer: Bimbisara

No, it is not Ashoka. Legend has it Bimbisara disguised himself as a soldier of an enemy nation (Vaishali) to find their means of defence against his empire Magadha. He was wounded by a soldier of his own army because of his disguise and taken care of by a courtesan in Vaishali (Amrapali) with whom he fell in love.

He managed to find Vaishali's means of defence and escaped to his own country to lead a campaign against Vaishali, which he won. However, Amrapali would have nothing to do with him after that, and converted to Buddhism, and he followed her in converting too.

This was before the Mauryan empire was even founded. Ashoka, the third Mauryan emperor, is the most famous royal convert to Buddhism though, and it is because of him (Ashoka) that Buddhism spread to Ceylon, Burma, Afghanistan and China (and thence to Japan and Korea).

Answer: Vijayanagar

Located in S. India in present day Karnatka. His court jester was Tenali Raman, stories of whose wit still abound in S. India. The ruins of the emperor's capital can be seen at Hampi, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

Answer: Adi Shankara

'Advaita' postulates that the supreme soul (God) and individual souls (animals, plants, humans ...) are the same. The individual souls do not realise their true nature because they are lost in material illusion. Adi Shankara was born in present day Kerala. He travelled all over India on foot. He also wrote the 'Viveka Chudamani'.

Answer: Rabindranath Tagore

He got the nobel prize for his work 'Gitanjali' in Bengali. He also wrote the National Anthem of India (and of Bangladesh too).

Answer: Guru Nanak Dev

Sikhism emerged in the fifteenth century AD. The Sikhs had 10 gurus, the last of whom was Guru Gobind Singh, who lived in the time of the Mughal emperor Aurangazeb. Aurangazeb was a tyrant, and the two main centres of resistance to his power were the Marathas in the West of India and the Sikhs in the North.