Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (History,Art&Culture) – May 18, 2020

The Mesolithic Age represents the intermediate stage in Stone Age Culture. Important Mesolithic sites are:

• Bagor, Rajasthanon River Kothari is one of the largest and best documented Mesolithic sites in India.
• Chhotanagpur Region, Central India. Both Adamgarh, M.P.and Bagor provide the earliest evidence for the domestication of animals
• South of River Krishna, Tinnevellyin Tamil Nadu
• Birbhanpurin West Bengal
• Sarai Nahar Rai, near Allahabad, Pratapgarh area
• Mahadaha, U.P.,where bone artifacts are found, including arrow-heads and bone ornaments.

Distinguishing aspects of Harappan town planning are as follows:

• The streets were wide, the main street being ten metres wide and dividing the town into rectangular and square blocks.
• There were lamp-postsat intervals. They used burnt bricks of good quality and the unique feature of this brick was its identical ratio of 1:2:4 in terms of thickness:width:length across all Harappan structures. Equally striking was the uniformity in the average size of bricks — 7 × 14 × 28 cm3 for houses and 10 × 20 × 40 cm for city walls.
• They had an excellent drainage system— drains were made of mortar, lime and gypsum and covered with large brick slabs for easy cleaning.
• Houses were often of two or more storeys, though varied in size but quite monotonous. No window faced the streets and the houses had tiled bathrooms. Some houses had their own wells.

The important non-canonical texts of Buddhist literature   are Milindapanho (written in Pali, it consists of a dialogue on various philosophical issues between the Indo- Greek king Milinda/Menander and the monk Nagasena), Nettipakarana (The Book of Guidance, which gives a connected account of the Buddha’s teachings), Visuddhimagga (The Path to Purity, written by Buddhaghosa.

Early Jain Literature: The complication of the entire canon is traditionally believed to have taken place in the fifth or sixth century CE at a council presided over by Devarddhi Kshamashramana held in Vallabhi in Gujarat. Compilations such as Acharanga Sutra, Sutrakritanga, and the Kalpasutra are regarded as the early texts.

Charvaka/Lokayata philosophy.

Statement 1 is correct: Its founder was Charvaka, the author of the Barhaspatya Sutras in the final centuries before the Common Era. It is characterised as a materialistic and atheistic school of thought. Lokayata refers to ideas derived from common people and it underlines the importance of intimate contact with the world (loka), while showing a lack of belief in the other world.

Statement 2 is incorrect: It denies the existence of any divine or supernatural agency and accepts the existence /reality of only those things which could be experienced by human senses and organs. Thus, there was a clear lack of faith in the existence of brahman and God. According to Charvaka, the Brahmanas manufactured rituals for acquiring dakshina (gifts).

Administration of Alauddin Khalji.

Statement 1 is correct: Alauddin was the first Sultan to have a large permanent standing army and paid them in cash from the royal treasury.

Statement 2 is correct: Since Alauddin wanted to maintain a large army; he therefore lowered and fixed the price of the commodities of daily use.

Sultans like Muhammad bin Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq took efforts to enhance agricultural production by providing irrigational facilities and by providing takkavi loans. They also encouraged the farmers to cultivate superior crop like wheat instead of barley. Firoz encouraged the growth of horticulture. Muhammad bin Tughlaq created a separate agricultural department, Diwan-i- Kohi.

Shyamji Krishna varma was an Indian revolutionary fighter, lawyer and journalist. He founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and The Indian Sociologist in London.

Home Charges represented the single biggest source of the direct drain of wealth, the expenses in Britain borne by the Indian treasury. These Home Charges were a huge burden on the finances and contributed to a sustained and continuous deficit in the budget throughout the nineteenth century. Home charges included pensions to British Indian officials, army officers, military and other stores purchased in England.

“Deepavali declaration” passed during the tenure of Lord Irwin in 1929(just after Simon commission 1928).It was just a show leaf to Indians for dominion status that was to be not granted anywhere in the near future.

A Boycott Resolution was passed in Calcutta City Hall on August 7, 1905, where it was decided to boycott the use of Manchester cloth and salt from Liverpool.

• Bande Mataram became the boycott and Swadeshi movement theme song.
• Boycott and public burning of foreign clothes, picketing of shops selling foreign goods, all became common in remote corners of Bengal as well as in many major cities and towns across the country.
• Another form of mass mobilization widely used by the Swadeshi movement was the corps of volunteers (samitis). Ashwini Kumar Dutt, a school teacher, set up the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti in Barisal was the best – known volunteer organization of all of them.
• The Shivaji and Ganapati festivals in Western India (Maharashtra) were organized by Lokmanya Tilak to spread the swadeshi message and boycott movements among the masses.