Deck 6: Religious Rivalries and Indiaʹs Golden Age

Question 1

Tribes of nomadic warriors that provided the foundation for post -Harappan civilization in India originally settled

A) in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains.
B) along the Ganges river valley.
C) along the Mahabharta river valley.
D) in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains.

Answer 1

in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains.

Question 2

Which of the following statements best describes the early kingdoms established in northern India?

A) Most of them were republics ruled collectively by a council made up of the free warrior elite.
B) Like the Greek mainland, the kingdoms were actually city-states ruled by aristocratic councils.
C) The early kingdoms were based on a strongly centralized monarchy with well established bureaucracies.
D) Early political organization among the kingdoms amounted to little more than hunting and gathering groups.

Answer 2

Most of them were republics ruled collectively by a council made up of the free warrior elite.

Question 3

Which of the following statements best describes the position of the brahmins in the early Aryan kingdoms of northern India?

A) Brahmins dominated all aspects of life as tutors of the princes and advisors to the king.
B) Brahmins were excluded from the Aryans society in general.
C) The warrior elites were careful to keep the power of the brahmins in check and fostered a healthy skepticism of their religious powers.
D) The rulers of the kingdoms were themselves brahmans who practiced a variety of rituals intended to maintain their centralized control over their kingdoms.

Answer 3

The warrior elites were careful to keep the power of the brahmins in check and fostered a healthy skepticism of their religious powers.

Question 4

After the spread of Aryan kingdoms to the Ganges river plain, how did the political organization of the new kingdoms compare to that of the older ones?

A) The new kingdoms were less centralized.
B) The new kingdoms were republics ruled collectively by a council made up of the free warrior elite.
C) The new kingdoms were more centralized and authoritarian with hereditary monarchs and powerful brahmin priests.
D) The new kingdoms were based on city-state organization similar to the Greek mainland.

Question 5

What was the position of the brahmins in the kingdoms of the Ganges plain and southern India?

A) The power of the brahmins was carefully checked by the warrior elite and the kings of the southern kingdoms.
B) Brahmins formed the dynasties of the southern kingdoms and exercised all authority without challenge.
C) The southern kingdoms rapidly converted to Buddhism and diminished the authority of the brahmins.
D) As educators, bureaucrats, and religious authorities, the brahmins often held more power than the members of the warrior elite who served as kings.

Question 6

What was the key function that assured the authority of the brahmins in the southern kingdoms?

A) Only the brahmins were capable of performing the rituals and sacrifices that obliged the gods to intervene in human affairs.
B) As the warrior elite, the brahmins controlled the military affairs of the southern kingdoms.
C) As the commercial class of India, the brahmins were entirely responsible for the economic prosperity of the southern kingdoms.
D) The brahmin class provided the members of all of the dynasties of the southern kingdoms.

Question 7

What was the degree of urbanization in the southern kingdoms of the Ganges plain?

A) As was typical of Aryan culture, the southern kingdoms had virtually no cities or towns.
B) Some small urban centers grew up around the palaces, but there was no commerce or manufacturing associated with them.
C) Towns appeared around the kingdoms? capitals and also as manufacturing and trading centers along the Ganges River.
D) As city-states, the southern kingdoms were entirely based on an urban culture that rivaled the urbanization of China.

Question 8

What was the status of merchants in the southern kingdoms of the Ganges plain?

A) Like China, merchants among the Aryan kingdoms were despised and, although wealthy, held low social status.
B) The lack of commerce within the southern kingdoms left the small merchant class poor and low-caste.
C) There was no social class or varna for merchants who were lumped together with artisans and peasants.
D) The great wealth amassed by merchants allowed them to win a prominent place in the Indian social hierarchy.

Question 9

What was the Indian name for the categories in the social order?

A) Aryans
B) Brahmins
C) Varnas
D) Untouchables

Question 10

What determined a person?s place within the Indian social hierarchy?

A) Wealth
B) Position within the government
C) The degree to which the occupation was considered polluting
D) His religious piety

Question 11

The caste at the very bottom of the Indian social hierarchy was the

A) brahmins.
B) artisans.
C) peasants.
D) untouchables.

Question 12

Which of the following was NOT a means of distinguishing between caste groups?

A) Diet
B) Ability to bathe in the Ganges
C) Ability to read the Vedas
D) Intermarriage with other castes

Question 13

The caste position and life path determined by a person?s birth was called one?s

A) varna.
B) ramayana.
C) dharma.
D) mantra.

Question 14

The transfer of a person?s soul from one body to another after death is called

A) Kamasutra.
B) suttee.
C) mitigation.
D) transmigration.

Question 15

Which of the following determined the sort of person that a soul would be attached to in its next reincarnation?

A) Dharma
B) Karma
C) Wealth
D) Mandala

Question 16

How did the classical civilizations? view of social organization differ from that of modern Western civilization?

A) Classical civilizations had poorly defined social groupings.
B) Classical civilizations felt that social mobility was critical to the well-being of society.
C) Modern societies are predicated on social mobility based on talent and the work ethic.
D) Modern societies lack any kind of social groupings designed to imply status.

Question 17

The two great epics of the preimperial period in India were the

A) Vedas and the Upanishads.
B) Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
C) Kamasutra and the Mandala.
D) Chandragupta and the Bindusara.

Question 18

What was the household structure of preimperial India?

A) Nuclear families for all caste groups
B) Extended families for all caste groups
C) Extended households for high-caste groups, nuclear households for lower-caste groups
D) Nuclear households for high-caste groups, extended families for lower-caste groups

Question 19

What was the status of women in the preimperial period in India?

A) Within the family they were clearly subordinate to men, but enjoyed greater occupational opportunities than was the case by the last centuries B.C.E.
B) Women were clearly subordinate within the household and were unable to hold any occupations outside of it.
C) Women enjoyed great freedom within the household, but were unable to hold any occupations outside of it.
D) Women enjoyed equality within the household, but were restricted from reading the sacred texts.

Question 20

When were the two great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana written?

A) Before 1500 B.C.E.
B) Between 1200 and 900 B.C.E.
C) Between 900 and 500 B.C.E.
D) In the last centuries B.C.E.

Question 21

Which of the following statements concerning the life of Buddha is NOT true?

A) Buddha was born into one of the brahmin clans.
B) Buddha was supposedly the son and heir of a local ruler.
C) Buddha renounced his claims to succeed his father and became a wandering holy man.
D) Buddha reached enlightenment while sitting under a Bo tree.

Question 22

The Buddhist state of enlightenment is called

A) dharma.
B) karma.
C) Nirvana.
D) Kamasutra.

Question 23

Which of the following was NOT a teaching of Buddha?

A) The moment we are born we begin to die.
B) Attachments to impermanent things of the world are the source of suffering.
C) The road to enlightenment begins with ritual sacrifices to the gods.
D) Once enlightenment is attained, the individual is released from suffering.

Question 24

After his death, Buddha

A) was worshipped as a divinity.
B) ascended into heaven from a mountain in northern India.
C) reappeared reflected in the waters of the Ganges River.
D) was largely forgotten.

Question 25

How did the monks devoted to Buddhism change his teachings in the years after Buddha?s death?

A) They offered miraculous tales of Buddha?s life, equated Nirvana with heaven, and stressed the salvationist qualities of the new religion.
B) They sought to downplay Buddha as a deity, attempted to limit admission to the religion to the upper-caste groups, and gained the cooperation of the brahmins.
C) They began to emphasize ritual sacrifices of animals as a means of gaining the confidence of the people.
D) The monks ended the Buddha?s emphasis on meditation and taught that all men were condemned to endless reincarnation.

Question 26

What was the attitude of Buddhism toward the caste system?

A) While the Buddhists did not regard social stratification as critical to the faithful, they only accepted members of the upper-caste groups as monks.
B) Buddhists rejected the caste system and admitted untouchables and women as members of the faith.
C) The Buddhists accepted the caste system entirely and incorporated it into their religion.
D) The Buddhists recognized only wealth as a means of defining one?s social position.

Question 27

Which of the following was NOT a Buddhist challenge to the authority of the brahmins?

A) The Buddha favored introspection and self-mastery over ritual and sacrifice.
B) The Buddha rejected the Vedas as divinely inspired teaching.
C) The Buddha rejected both karma and reincarnation.
D) The Buddha rejected the lifestyles of the brahmins based on worldly power and authority.

Question 28

The person responsible for the Greek invasion of the Indus river valley was

A) Philip II of Macedon.
B) Alexander the Great.
C) Dionysos.
D) Pericles of Athens.

Question 29

The Greek invasion of northwestern India lasted from

A) 496 to 480 B.C.E.
B) 354 to 350 B.C.E.
C) 327 to 324 B.C.E.
D) 153 to 149 B.C.E.

Question 30

Which of the following was NOT an impact of the Greek invasion of northwestern India?

A) It stimulated trade between India and the West.
B) Greek astronomical and mathematical ideas entered India.
C) Indian religious philosophy impacted the Stoics and mystery religions of Western civilizations.
D) A centralized Greek state was created that dominated the Indus river valley for four centuries.

Question 31

What was the first imperial dynasty of classical India?

A) Kushanas
B) Hamdanids
C) Mauryas
D) Guptas

Question 32

The first ruler of imperial India during the classical period was

A) Ashoka.
B) Bindusara.
C) Chandragupta Maurya.
D) Binda Pasha.

Question 33

How did the Mauryan empire of Chandragupta compare to the Aryan kingdoms that preceded it?

A) Although called an empire, it was little more than a tribute-collecting patchwork of petty rulers.
B) It retained the republican aspects of the first Aryan kingdoms with elected monarchs and warrior councils.
C) While it did succeed in dominating most of northwestern India, it never conquered the kingdoms of southern India.
D) It was vastly more centralized than the preceding kingdoms with a large standing army and administrators in place of the regional lords.

Question 34

Which of the following statements concerning the rule of Ashoka is NOT true?

A) He converted to Hinduism
B) He completed the conquests begun by his father and grandfather
C) His early career was predicated on violence, cruelty, and warfare
D) His religious conversion led to a drastic change in his ruling methods

Question 35

Which of the following groups viewed Ashoka?s reign as a threat?

A) Buddhist monks
B) Merchants
C) Peasants
D) Brahmins

Question 36

Which of the following groups was NOT offended by Ashoka?s administrative practices?

A) Brahmins
B) Warrior families that had once ruled small states
C) Buddhist monks
D) The populace as a whole

Question 37

Which groups did Ashoka?s social policies tend to benefit?

A) Brahmins and warriors
B) Merchants, women, and artisans
C) Peasants
D) Untouchables

Question 38

Buddhist art and architecture were preserved in the stone shrines built to hold relics of the Buddha and called

A) mandalas.
B) Kamasutra.
C) Vedas.
D) stupas.

Question 39

What was the result of Buddhist missionary efforts during the reign of Ashoka?

A) Despite major efforts, Buddhism failed to spread much beyond the Indian subcontinent.
B) Through the remaining Greek influence in northwestern India, Buddhism spread to the areas affected by Greek culture.
C) Buddhism spread first to Sri Lanka and the Himalayan kingdoms and from there to central and southeastern Asia.
D) Buddhism?s spread was limited to the pastoral nomads of the central Asia steppes.

Question 40

By what date had the Maurya empire disappeared?

A) 350 B.C.E.
B) 185 B.C.E.
C) 9 C.E.
D) 185 C.E.

Question 41

Why were the Buddhists vulnerable to the restoration of brahminic authority?

A) The imperial dynasties from the Mauryas on had remained steadfastly loyal to the brahmins.
B) The Buddhist monks became increasingly isolated from the rest of the Indian population.
C) Buddhism had never expanded much beyond the kingdoms in the foothills of the Himalayas.
D) Buddhism only appealed to the upper-caste classes of Indian society.

Question 42

Which of the following was NOT a tactic utilized by the brahmins to make their religion more accessible to all Indians?

A) They reduced the emphasis on large sacrifices and stressed the importance of small offerings of food and prayers.
B) Temples devoted to special gods allocated to specific groups served as a focus for popular worship.
C) Women were permitted to participate in devotional cults as poets and singers.
D) Hinduism clearly rejected any inclusion of Buddhist beliefs in the brahmanic religion.

Question 43

What economic factor weakened the hold of Buddhism on the Indian population?

A) The improving status of the peasantry made them less likely to be interested in a salvationist religion.
B) The untouchables were decimated by a severe famine, thus removing a class associated with Buddhism.
C) The failure of the Rome-China trade axis weakened the merchants, who had been one of the chief benefactors of the Buddhist monasteries.
D) The increasing wealth of all social classes reduced the strictness of social division within the caste system and undermined one of the attractions of Buddhism.

Question 44

How did the Gupta empire compare in terms of political organization to the Maurya empire?

A) Their domains were not nearly as large, nor did they exercise such centralized control over the petty states.
B) The Gupta empire was much larger than the Mauryan and also more centralized.
C) The Gupta empire was based on the concept of linked city-states unlike the republican basis of the Mauryan empire.
D) The Gupta emperors possessed a much more professionalized bureaucracy on the model of the Chinese scholar-gentry.

Question 45

What was the status of the brahmins under the Guptas?

A) The Guptas converted to Buddhism and reduced the influence of the brahmins.
B) The brahmins recovered some of the ground lost to Buddhist monks, but were unable to achieve their former dominance.
C) The brahmins once again served as the literate administrators of the Guptas, but their influence was limited to the imperial court.
D) The brahmins recovered their former positions of dominance throughout Indian society as teachers, political administrators, and religious authorities.

Question 46

How was the social hierarchy of India transformed during the reign of the Guptas?

A) In general restrictions against low-caste groups and women became harsher and more pervasive.
B) While restrictions against untouchables became more strict, women achieved greater equality during the Gupta period.
C) Brahmins and other upper-caste groups lost their clear social distinctiveness as Indian society became more open to social mobility.
D) The castes were abandoned and replaced by the tripartite system of general varnas.

Question 47

What was the title of the Indian handbook for young men including tips on hygiene, grooming, etiquette, and love-making?

A) Ramayana
B) Kamasutra
C) Mahabharata
D) Arthashastra

Question 48

What was the nature of the economy during the Gupta period?

A) The continued prosperity of the China-Rome axis allowed the continued development of international trade.
B) The Indian economy entered a period of severe depression during which most trade and manufacturing ceased.
C) Although the China-Rome trade axis declined, India remained the hub of the great Indian Ocean trading network.
D) Technological crudity limited the ability of Indian manufacturing and agricultural productivity to expand.

Question 49

What were the sources of brahminic power in the early Aryan kingdoms of the Ganges plain?

Question 50

Discuss the structure of the caste system as it developed from 1000 B.C.E. to the end of the Gupta period.

Question 51

How did the rise of Buddhism in the 5th century B.C.E. challenge the dominance of the brahmans?

Question 52

How did the Mauryan empire represent a significant break with the past tradition of Indian civilization?

Question 53

Compare and contrast the political and religious organization of the Gupta empire with the Maurya empire.