Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (History, Art & Culture) – June 15, 2020

The inferences about Harappan Economy have been derived from its flourishing trade relations with its contemporary Mesopotamian and Persian civilisations.

• Seals hold a special significance in the Harappan context. Every merchant probably had a seal bearing an emblem, often of a religions character and a name / brief description on one side.
• The standard Harappa seal was a square / oblong plaque made of steatite stone. Though its primary purpose is inferred to mark the ownership of property, they may also have served as amulets.
• They carried out internal and external trade. There was no metallic money in circulation and trade was conducted by means of barter.
• Inland transport primarily employed bullock carts. Harappans seals have been found in Mesopotamian cities like Susa and Ur.
• In Nippur, a seal has been found bearing Harappan script and a unicorn. Recently, some ancient sites in the Persian Gulf like Failaka and Bahrain have also yielded Harappan seals.

literal meaning of Upanishad is to sit near someone. There are 108 Upanishads, of which 13 are the most prominent. The Upanishads dwell on the Atman and Brahman, and focus a lot on the philosophy about life, universe, self, body, sacrifice, etc. They emphasise that the knowledge of the self or atman should be acquired and that the relation of the atman with the Brahman should be properly understood.

• Chhandogya Upanishad: First three ashramas (Brahmacharya, Garhasthya, Vanaprastha).
• Brahadarankya Upanishad: Samsara (transmigration of soul).
• Jabala Upanishad: Four ashrams (Brahmacharya, Garhasthya, Vanaprastha, Sannyas).

The sixth century BCE is known as an era of Second Urbanisation in the Indian Subcontinent. After the decline of the Harappan towns and nearly after a gap of more than a thousand years, urban centres emerged again but not in the Indus plain.

• The centre of economic and political activity shifted from the North-West, Punjab, Haryana, and Western UP, to Eastern UP and Bihar (Ganga Basin).
• This region was not only fertile on account of better rainfall and river systems, but was also closer to the iron production centres.
• The new iron agricultural tools and implements (such as the ploughshare) enabled the people to clear thick forest cover and cultivate the hard soil of this area.
• Also, iron weapons made the warrior class more important, and slowly, people gained a strong allegiance to the territory they belonged to rather than the Jana or tribe.
• The use of better iron tools and weapons enabled some territorial states to become very large, and they came to be called Mahajanapadas (large territorial states) in North India (cities and states became visible in South India a few centuries later).
• Most of the Mahajanapadas were situated in the north of Vindhyas, between Bihar in the east to the north-west frontier of the subcontinent.

Craft products like textile goods, ivory products, pots, etc., were exported over long distances by merchants. All the major cities were situated on river banks and trade routes, and were connected with each other.

• The two major trans-regional routes of the time were known as Uttarapatha (of northern India, stretching from the north-west across the Indo-Gangetic plains to the port city of Tamralipti on the Bay of Bengal).
• Dakshinapatha (of southern India, stretching from Pataliputra in Magadha to Pratishthana on the Godavari, and connected to ports on the western coast).
  

Important Buddhist writers and their works.

• Asvaghosha: Author of the Buddhacharita in Sanskrit. Contemporary of Kanishka. He was a poet, dramatist, musician, scholar, and debater.
• Asanga and Vasubandhu: Two brothers who flourished in the Punjab region in the fourth century CE. Asanga was the most important teacher of Yogachara or Vijnanavada school founded by his guru, Maitreyanatha. Vasubandhus greatest work, Abhidharmakosa, is still considered an important encyclopaedia of Buddhism.
• Buddhaghosa: He lived in the fifth century and was a great Pali scholar. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification), a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddhas path to liberation.
• Nagarjuna: He is considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism. He was a friend and contemporary of Satvahana King Gautamiputra of Andhra.

Patanjali, the notable grammarian who wrote the Mahabhasya was a contemporary of Pushyamitra Sunga.

The most important feature of the Sangam economy was flourishing trade with the Roman world.

• The best account of Indo-Roman trade is given in the book called the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, which was written in the first century CE by an anonymous author.
• Major items of export to the Romans were the Indian products such as spices (included yavanapriya or pepper), perfumes, jewels, ivory and fine textiles (muslin especially), several precious and semi-precious stones like diamond, carnelian, turquoise, agate, sapphire, and so on, besides pearls, indigo, sandalwood, iron and steel cutlery.

The Delhi Sultanate was divided into smaller provinces for it was convenient for the ministers to help them in the administration. They were called IQTAS.

• The Iqtadari was a unique type of land distribution and administrative system evolved during the sultanate of Iltutmish.
• Under this system, the entire empire was very evenly divided into several large and small tracts of land, called the Iqtas.
• These plots of land were assigned to the various nobles, officers and soldiers for the purpose of easy and flawless administration and revenue collection.
• The Iqtas were transferable, i.e., the holders of Iqtas-Iqtadars-were transferred from one region to other every three to four years.
• The holders of small Iqtas were individual troopers. They had no administrative responsibilities.

Although the Sultan (Alauddin Khalji) was illiterate, he patronised poets like Amir Khusrau and Mir Hasan Dehlvi. He also built a famous gateway known as Alai Darwaza, Hauz Khas, Mahal Hazaar Satoon, Jamait Khana Mosque, Alai Minar, and constructed a new capital at Siri.

The Vijayanagar kingdom constituted four dynasties — Sangama (c.1336–1485 CE), Saluva (c.1485–1503 CE), Tuluva (c.1503–1570 CE) and Aravidu (till the end of the 17th century). There are varied sources for the study of the Vijayanagar kingdom, such as literary and archaeological sources, as well as numismatics. Krishnadevaraya’s Amukthamalyada, Gangadevi’s Maduravijayam, and Allasani Peddanna’s Manucharitam are some of the indigenous literature of this period.