Indian History Mixed Quiz 5: Harappa to Chauri Chaura, WBPSC Clerkship GK

The Buddha attained enlightenment under a peepal tree (the Bodhi tree) at Bodh Gaya in Bihar, on the bank of the Niranjana. He was born at Lumbini, gave his first sermon at Sarnath and attained mahaparinirvana at Kushinagar. All four are the main Buddhist pilgrim sites.

Mahavira was born at Kundagrama near Vaishali. He attained nirvana at Pava (Pawapuri), which is why Pava looks familiar. Lumbini is the Buddha's birthplace, and Rajagriha was the first capital of Magadha.

The Gupta Era is counted from the accession of Chandragupta I in 319–320 CE. He took the title 'Maharajadhiraja' and married the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi. Sri Gupta founded the dynasty and Ghatotkacha was his son; Samudragupta was the son of Chandragupta I.

The Fourth Buddhist Council met in Kashmir under the Kushana emperor Kanishka, presided over by Vasumitra. After it Buddhism split into the Hinayana and Mahayana schools. Ajatashatru was patron of the first council and Ashoka of the third; Harshavardhana held an assembly at Kannauj, but it is not one of the four Buddhist councils.

Nalanda Mahavihara was founded in the 5th century under the Gupta emperor Kumaragupta I. Later Harshavardhana and the Pala kings endowed it, and Hiuen Tsang studied there. The Pala king Dharmapala founded Vikramashila, not Nalanda.

In the Second Battle of Tarain (1192) Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan, opening north India to Turkish rule. A year earlier, in the first battle (1191), Prithviraj had won. Qutb-ud-din Aibak was Ghori's general and later the first Sultan of Delhi.

To maintain a huge army on low pay, Alauddin Khalji fixed the prices of grain, cloth, horses and other goods. Officials called Shahna-i-Mandi supervised the markets. Muhammad bin Tughlaq is known for his token copper currency and the shift of the capital.

The brothers Harihara and Bukka of the Sangama dynasty founded the Vijayanagara Empire in 1336 on the Tungabhadra; the ruins of its capital are today's Hampi. Krishnadeva Raya (Tuluva dynasty) was its most famous king, not its founder. Rajendra Chola and Pulakeshin belong to other dynasties.

At Talikota in 1565 an alliance of the Deccan Sultanates (Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, Bidar) defeated Vijayanagara; its capital was sacked and the empire began to decline. These sultanates had grown out of the Bahmani kingdom, so the Bahmanis were forerunners of the winners, not the losers. The Maratha power rose later, in the 17th century.

In the Second Battle of Panipat (1556) the Mughal army, led by Bairam Khan for the young Akbar, defeated Hemu (Hemachandra Vikramaditya). Ibrahim Lodi lost the first battle (1526) to Babur, and Rana Sangram Singh (Rana Sanga) lost at Khanwa (1527). Sher Shah had died in 1545.

Akbar built the Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri to commemorate his conquest of Gujarat (1573). Fatehpur Sikri itself was the capital Akbar built. Shah Jahan's name goes with the Taj Mahal and Delhi's Red Fort and Jama Masjid.

In the Third Battle of Panipat (1761) the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Abdali (Durrani) defeated the Maratha army led by Sadashivrao Bhau. Nadir Shah was the Persian ruler who invaded Delhi in 1739 and took away the Peacock Throne. Aurangzeb had died in 1707.

Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1784; the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, was its patron, not its founder. James Prinsep, later its secretary, deciphered the Brahmi script. Alexander Cunningham was the first head of the Archaeological Survey of India.

Under Lord Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse, an adopted son of a ruler without a natural heir was not accepted as successor, and the state passed to the Company. Satara (1848), Jhansi, Nagpur and others were annexed this way. Wellesley brought the Subsidiary Alliance, Cornwallis the Permanent Settlement, Bentinck the ban on sati.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in Bombay in 1875; his call was 'Go back to the Vedas' and his main book the 'Satyarth Prakash'. Rammohan Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha (1828) and Keshab Chandra Sen led the Brahmo movement. Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission.

After Sri Ramakrishna's death (1886), his disciple Swami Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897, named after his guru. Its headquarters is Belur Math in Howrah. Taking Sri Ramakrishna for the founder because of the name is a common mistake.

The All-India Muslim League was founded at Dhaka in December 1906, a year after the Partition of Bengal (1905). Lucknow comes to mind because of the Lucknow Pact of 1916, when the Congress and the League made joint demands. At Lahore in 1940 the League passed the Pakistan Resolution.

Back from South Africa, Gandhiji led his first satyagraha in India in 1917 at Champaran in Bihar, against the forced indigo cultivation (the tinkathia system). The Ahmedabad mill strike and the Kheda Satyagraha in Gujarat followed in 1918. The Bardoli Satyagraha (1928) was led by Vallabhbhai Patel.

In February 1922 an angry crowd at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district (Uttar Pradesh) set a police station on fire and policemen were killed. Because of the violence Gandhiji called off the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22). Civil Disobedience began in 1930, Quit India in 1942, and the Swadeshi Movement belongs to the Partition of Bengal (1905).