Medieval Indian History Questions (MCQs) for UPSC, SSC and States PCS Examinations

Notes:
Khafi khan called Bahadur Shah I popularly Shahi-i- Bekhabar. He was also known as as Shah Alam I. This is due to his appeasement parties by grants of title and rewards. He was ascended himself on the throne in 1707 after killing his brothers.

Notes:
Ashta Pradhan of Shivaji: 
1. Pantpradhan(Moro Trimbak Pingale) – General administration of the kingdom.
2. Amatya(Ramchandra Neelkanth Mujumdar) – Accounts of the kingdom.
3. Sachiv(Annaji Datto) – To prepare royal edicts.
4. Mantri(Dattaji Trimbak Waknis) – state correspondence.
5. Senapati(Hambirrao Mohite) – Managing the army and protection of the kingdom.
6. Sumant(Ramchandra Trimbak Dabir) – Foreign relations.
7. Nyayadhish(Niraji Raoji) – to dispense justice.
8. Panditrao(Moreswar Panditrao) – Religious matters.

Notes:
Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib is in Chandni Chowk , Delhi

Notes:
Sayana was a Sanskrit Mimamsa scholar. He was from the Vijayanagara Empire of South India in Karnataka. An influential commentator on the Vedas, he flourished under King Bukka Raya I and his successor Harihara II.

Notes:
During Farrukhsiyar reign, in 1717, that the British East India Company purchased duty-free trading rights in all of Bengal for a mere three thousand rupees a year. The son-in-law of Mir Jafar, who was made Nawab of Bengal after the Battle of Chinsura opposed the Imperial Dastak because it was discriminator. Mir Kasim abolished all the taxes of the Local traders.

Notes:
Silapaddikaram’ and ‘Manimekalai’ are the two epics of sangam age. They were considered as one of the best tamil works done till date. The are known as twin epics.

Notes:
Shri Krishna Chaitanya was a 16th century saint who was also known as Gauranga. He was born in Nabadwip in current West Bengal. His original name was Vishvambhara Mishra. His mode of worshipping Krishna with ecstatic song and dance had a profound effect on Vaishnavism in Bengal. At 22, he made a pilgrimage to Gaya to perform his father’s Shraddh. There he underwent a profound religious experience that transformed his outlook and personality. He returned to Nabadwip entirely indifferent to all worldly concerns. A group of devotees soon gathered around Chaitanya and joined him in the congregational worship called kirtan, which involves choral singing of the name and deeds of God, often accompanied by dance movements and culminating in states of trance. For Chaitanya, the legends of Krishna and his beloved, Radha, symbolized the highest expression of mutual love between God and the human soul. Bhakti (devotion) superseded all other forms of religious practice and was conceived as complete self-surrender to the divine will. Although Chaitanya himself wrote no works on theology or religious practices, his selection of and charges to core disciples gave birth to a major Vaishnava sect in his own lifetime, called familiarly the Chaitanya Sampradaya or Gaudiya Sampradaya Chaitanya’s own frequent and prolonged experiences of religious rapture took their toll on his health; he himself diagnosed some of his seizures as epileptic. Thus, the Gaudiya Sampradaya is an intensely emotional form of Hinduism which flourished from the sixteenth century, mainly in Bengal and eastern Orissa. It started from Nabadwip and spread. A theology for the movement was worked out by a group of Chaitanya’s disciples who came to be known as the six gosvamins (religious teachers; literally lords of cows). At Chaitanya’s request, this group of scholars remained in Vrindavan, near Mathura, the scene of the Krishna-Radha legends. The six gosvamins turned out a voluminous religious and devotional literature in Sanskrit, defining the tenets of the movement and its ritual practices. Their reestablishment of the pilgrimage sites of Vrindavan and Mathura was an achievement of importance for all Vaishnavas (devotees of Lord Vishnu). Although Chaitanya appears to have been worshipped as an incarnation of Krishna even during his lifetime, the theory of his dual incarnation, as Krishna and Radha in one body, was systematically developed only by the later Bengali religious writers. The present leaders of the sect, called gosvamins, are (with some exceptions) the lineal descendants of Chaitanya’s early disciples and companions. The ascetics are known as vairagins (the dispassionate). Among this group was the late A. C. Bhaktivedanta, known as Swami Prabhupada, who believed that Chaitanya’s faith would benefit people throughout the world. He is the founder of the international Society for Krishna Consciousness or ISKCON, commonly called the “Hare Krishnas”, which has attempted to establish the beliefs and practices of the Chaitanya Movement around the world.

Notes:
Both are correct statements
Origin of Devadasi tradition goes as back as sixth century when the young girls, often from wealthy family backgrounds were dedicated to the local temples. After they would have gone through the dedication ceremony, they would be ‘married’ to the deity. They would then act as temple care-takers and performed rituals, dancing and music in the honour of the deity.

Notes:
Shershah suri was the founder of suri empire. He was one of the greatest medieval king who developed the country. He renovated the grand trunk road, built Sarais and others. So all 3 are correct options.

Notes:
The Din-i Ilahi was essentially an ethical system, prohibiting such sins as lust, sensuality, slander, and pride and enjoining the virtues of piety, prudence, abstinence, and kindness. The soul was encouraged to purify itself through its yearning for God (a tenet of Sufism, Islamic mysticism), celibacy was condoned (as in Roman Catholicism), and the slaughter of animals was forbidden (as in Jainism). There were no sacred scriptures or a priestly hierarchy in the Din-i Ilahi. In its ritual, it borrowed heavily from Zoroastrianism, making light (sun and fire) an object of divine worship and reciting, as in Hinduism, the 1,000 Sanskrit names of the sun.