Ancient Indian History MCQs

Notes:
Rajaraja I, born Arulmoli Varman, often described as Rajaraja the Great, was a Chola emperor chiefly remembered for reinstating the Chola power. Rajendra Chola I or Rajendra I was a Tamil Chola emperor of South India who succeeded his father Rajaraja Chola I to the throne in 1014 CE. They build temples to commemorate their victories.

Notes:
Vedic culture, Gopath is kept in the Brahman category. The Vedic texts are the primary sources for understanding the Vedic age. The Vedic period was in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of India’s history. The Vedas are liturgical texts that form the basis of the Brahmanical ideology. The Vedic texts contain details of life during this period.

Notes:
The Tocharians were an Indo-European people who inhabited the medieval oasis city-states on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin in ancient times. The Tocharian languages, a branch of the Indo-European family, are known from manuscripts from the 6th to 8th centuries AD. The Kushans were most probably one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people of possible Tocharian origin.

Notes:
Greeks, Kushanas & Shakas had entered India through the North West side. Accepting the local religion would provide them the easiest way to achieve legitimacy of their rule. Since Buddhism was prevalent in the area at that time and it was provided easiest entry (Hinduism had st5rict caste based structure) so, they embraces Buddhism.

Notes:
The basic iconography, however, remained Indian. The materials used for Gandhara sculpture were green phyllite and gray-blue mica schist, which, in general, belong to an earlier phase and Gandhara art is often referred to as the Graeco-or-Roman–Buddhist school.

Notes:
The ancient port city of Lothal located in Gujarat, western India dating to 2400 BCE notably possesses houses with doors opening directly onto main streets in its lower town. This indicates planning allowances enabling convenient access between private residences and public bylanes in contrast to houses accessible only from enclosed side lanes seen in Mohenjo-daro. The Lothal housing architecture variance demonstrates localized preferences in Harappan town planning and civic conventions.

Notes:
Explicit carved stone representations of female reproductive organs have been discovered from the excavations at the type-site of Harappa located in Sahiwal district of Pakistan’s Punjab province. These may have served a ritual purpose as fertility symbols. Some scholars believe them as evidence for an early tradition of revering the female entity, almost goddess-like, that continued in later Indian culture.

Notes:
Sir John Marshall- Director-General of the ASI from 1902–1928 led to organisation of its work structure and departments. In the 1920s, he named the newly discovered Indus Valley civilization after Harappa, the first site excavated in Sahni’s 1921 work, thus giving the entire culture its nomenclature as the ‘Harappan civilization’.

Notes:
Horse remains of Indus Valley civilization were discovered at Surkotada in Kutch district of Gujarat. Surkotada was an Indus valley site occupied between 2500 BCE and 2000 BCE. Several horse bones were found here, providing the earliest evidence of horses in South Asia. This challenged the prevailing view that horses were brought to the subcontinent by invading Aryans around 1500 BCE.

Notes:
During the Rig Vedic period the unit of currency was niskha. It was made of gold. During the Rig Vedic Age barter system was the model of exchange and the cow was an important unit of value.