Deck 15: India and the Indian Ocean Basin

Question 1

Vijayanagar,the name of a southern Indian kingdom,means

A) "land of Vishnu."
B) "beloved of Allah."
C) "the pure land."
D) "city of victory."
E) "land of the one god."

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Buzurg ibn Shahriyar

A) was one of the most influential Sufi missionaries to visit India.
B) led a series of devastating invasions of India in the eleventh century.
C) established the Delhi sultanate in the thirteenth century.
D) was the first powerful caliph after the death of Muhammad.
E) wrote the Book of the Wonders of India.

Answer 2

E

Question 3

The scholarly Buddhist emperor who reunited northern India in the seventh century was

A) Shankara.
B) Harihara.
C) Mahmud of Ghazni.
D) Harsha.
E) Ashoka.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

In 711,the northern Indian area of Sind fell to the

A) Abbasid dynasty.
B) Umayyad dynasty.
C) Tang dynasty.
D) Byzantine empire.
E) Chola dynasty.

Question 5

Hindu temples

A) played an important role in the agricultural and financial development of southern India.
B) were never able to compete with the strong Buddhist temples of northern India.
C) held southern India back economically because of the Hindu law against lending money.
D) disappeared in southern India because of the prominence of Islam.
E) remained centers of women's rights.

Question 6

Mahmud of Ghazni's main inspiration for visiting India in the eleventh century was to

A) spread Islam.
B) visit important Buddhist temples.
C) build a centralized state based on a Persian model.
D) plunder.
E) forge a lasting trading alliance with China.

Question 7

The bhakti movement

A) never caught on in India as it had in China.
B) appealed to Indians who were stifled by the strictly monotheistic views of Hinduism.
C) tried to find god through a strictly rationalistic pursuit of the divine.
D) sought to erase the distinction between Hinduism and Islam.
E) sought to erase the distinction between Hinduism and Buddhism.

Question 8

During the postclassical age,the caste system

A) disappeared because of the arrival of Islam.
B) created chaos in local communities.
C) became securely established in southern India for the first time.
D) rejected migrants coming into India.
E) was merged into modern Buddhist thought.

Question 9

The Delhi sultans were

A) never able to expand their control beyond northern India.
B) able to unite all of India for the first time since the Mauryas.
C) able to make Islam the main religion of India.
D) proponents of a more syncretic version of Islam.
E) not able to conquer all of India until they united with the Chinese.

Question 10

Islam reached India by all of the following routes EXCEPT

A) conquest by Arabic invaders.
B) missionaries sent by the emperor Harsha.
C) Islamic merchants.
D) migrations from Turkish-speaking peoples from central Asia.
E) conquest by Arabic invaders and missionaries sent by Harsha.

Question 11

The kingdoms of southern India were mainly

A) Islamic.
B) Buddhist.
C) Hindu.
D) Sikh.
E) Jain.

Question 12

By around 1500 what portion of the total Indian population was Muslim?

A) one-twentieth
B) one-tenth
C) one-fourth
D) one-half
E) two-thirds

Question 13

The presence of the changing monsoon winds ensured that

A) irrigation never developed in India,because it was never necessary.
B) India enjoyed complete isolation.
C) shipping was impossible in the Indian Ocean basin.
D) irrigation was necessary in arid southern India.
E) the Indian religious hierarchy would be dominated by one great storm god.

Question 14

India was a natural location for the establishment of emporia because of

A) its central location in the Indian Ocean basin.
B) the continuous problem of Chinese pirates.
C) its cold,dry climate.
D) the absence of any monsoon winds.
E) its strong,centralized government.

Question 15

In 1336,Harihara and Bukka,two emissaries from the Delhi sultan,renounced Islam,reconverted to Hinduism,and founded the southern kingdom of

A) Chola.
B) Vijayanagar.
C) Funan.
D) Angkor.
E) Maurya.

Question 16

After the collapse of the Gupta dynasty in the fifth century,India would not be completely reunited until the

A) seventh century.
B) ninth century.
C) thirteenth century.
D) sixteenth century.
E) twentieth century.

Question 17

The Islamic ruler who led seventeen different raiding expeditions into India in the eleventh century was

A) Harihara.
B) Srivijaya.
C) Ramanuja.
D) Abu Bakr.
E) Mahmud of Ghazni.

Question 18

The wealthy trading state that controlled southern India from 850 through 1267 was the

A) Chola kingdom.
B) Delhi sultanate.
C) Vijayanagar kingdom.
D) kingdom of Funan.
E) kingdom of Angkor.

Question 19

Northern India was dominated from the thirteenth through the early sixteenth century by the

A) Abbasid dynasty.
B) Chola kingdom.
C) Southern Song dynasty.
D) Delhi sultanate.
E) Umayyad dynasty.

Question 20

In regard to political structure,postclassical India

A) rivaled Tang China in respect to size and administrative brilliance.
B) developed no single centralized imperial authority.
C) copied the Chinese model after being conquered by the Tang.
D) was most influenced by Byzantium.
E) was more similar to imperial Rome than to Tang China.

Question 21

Funan dominated the lower reaches of which southeast Asian river?

A) Mekong
B) Irrawaddy
C) Salween
D) Huang He
E) Yangzi

Question 22

Which of the following states was most heavily influenced by Islam?

A) Vijayanagar
B) Melaka
C) Angkor
D) Srivijaya
E) Funan

Question 23

The biggest difference between Melaka and the other states influenced by India was that Melaka

A) played a role in sea trade,while the other states relied on land trade.
B) became predominantly Islamic.
C) started out as mainly Islamic but later converted to Buddhism.
D) built a large,centralized land empire.
E) was predominantly Hindu.

Question 24

The kingdom of Srivijaya

A) converted to Islam.
B) was located on Sumatra and maintained a sea trade route between China and India.
C) was the first southeast Asian state to adopt Indian ways.
D) was located in modern Cambodia and displayed Hindu and Buddhist influences.
E) was the only Christian kingdom in southeast Asia.

Question 25

The temples of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat were built by the rulers of what kingdom?

A) Khmer
B) Funan
C) Srivijaya
D) Melaka
E) Majapahit

Question 26

Mahmud of Ghazni had more of an interest in plundering India's wealth than in ruling India.

Question 27

Paramesvara was known for

A) founding the southern Indian kingdom of Vijayanagar.
B) playing a pivotal role in the spread of the bhakti movement.
C) leading a series of plundering raids into India in the eleventh century.
D) founding the kingdom of Melaka.
E) writing the Bhagavata Purana.

Question 28

King Harsha permanently restored unified rule to most of India and sought to revive imperial authority.

Question 29

Dhows and junks enabled traders to leave behind the coastlines and sail the blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

Question 30

By 1500,Muslims numbered about one-quarter of the subcontinent's population.

Question 31

During the fourteenth century,cities in southern India grew fast,partly due to increasing agricultural productivity.

Question 32

The two most important deities in the Hindu pantheon were Vishnu and Shiva.

Question 33

The first southeast Asian state to reflect Indian influence was centered on its capital port city of Oc Eo.What was its name?

A) Majapahit
B) Melaka
C) Srivijaya
D) Funan
E) Kra

Question 34

The bhakti teacher Guru Kabir believed

A) that the only true path to salvation was through complete devotion to Allah.
B) in a harshly exclusive faith.
C) that Shiva,Vishnu,and Allah were all manifestations of a single,universal deity.
D) that true disciples had to renounce the foreign influence of Islam and return to Hinduism.
E) that Buddhism was the only true faith.

Question 35

The design of the Khmer temples at Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat show

A) the influence of both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
B) the growing influence of Islam.
C) a definite influence from the Tang dynasty.
D) that the Khmer were the only kingdom in southeast Asia that avoided Indian influence.
E) a Confucian influence.

Question 36

The two kingdoms that dominated southern India from the ninth through the sixteenth centuries were Chola and Vijayanagar.

Question 37

Which of the following states had its base in Cambodia?

A) Funan
B) Angkor
C) Singosari
D) Melaka
E) Majapahit

Question 38

Which of the following Indian concepts did NOT become popular in the southeast Asian states influenced by India?

A) Hinduism
B) the caste system
C) literary classics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata
D) conducting official business in Sanskrit
E) the creation of established positions for administrators and bureaucrats

Question 39

The caste system did not adjust to the migration of new people into Indian society,as it segregated migrants.

Question 40

Ramanuja was a brahmin philosopher who was a devotee of Shiva and held that the physical world was an illusion.

Question 41

Examine the influence of trade in the political,cultural,and religious development of the Indian basin.Explain the significance of the monsoon.What role did the Hindu temples of southern India play in economic growth?

Question 42

What were some of the significant trade goods produced in southern India?

Question 43

What might the popularity of devotional cults explain about the Hindu response to the spread of Islam?

Question 44

Examine the small Hindu kingdoms of southern India that arose after the collapse of the Guptas.How did these states resist the spread of Islam? How successful were they in their other endeavors?

Question 45

Look at the sculpture of Shiva on page 325.How could Shiva be a god of fertility but also a destructive deity? How influential were the devotional cults during this period? What could the growing popularity of the Hindu devotional cults say about the rise of Islam?

Question 46

When and how did Islam enter northern India?

Question 47

Examine the complex religious world of India.What were the main religions and how did they interact? Was there an attempt to bring the various branches of belief together?

Question 48

Examine the invasions of Mahmud of Ghazni and the later establishment of the Delhi sultanate.When did Islam first arrive in India? How successful were Mahmud and the Delhi sultans in winning converts? How did religion affect the power of the Delhi sultans?

Question 49

How did Islam reach India? How might India's fragmented political situation help explain Islam's success? Why would Islam be popular among certain segments of the Hindu population?

Question 50

Examine the trade routes illustrated in Map 15.2,The trading world of the Indian Ocean basin,600-1600C.E. How important was India's role in Indian Ocean basin trade? What role did the monsoons play in Indian trade? What are emporia?

Question 51

In India,as elsewhere,the most effective agents of conversion to Islam were Sufi mystics.

Question 52

Examine the spread of Islam into southeast Asia.How did it spread and why was it successful? In what ways was Islam viewed differently in southeast Asia than elsewhere?

Question 53

Compare the influence of India on the southeast Asian,Indianized societies to the influence exerted by other major societies studied earlier (e.g.,Greece,China,Byzantium,etc.).Are there any similarities? In what ways was Indian influence different?

Question 54

What factors led to the collapse of unified,imperial rule in India before and after the reign of Harsha?

Question 55

Why did a powerful,centralized state like the Tang dynasty in China never arise in India after the collapse of the Guptas? What factors might help explain this fact? How was India affected by its lack of political unification?

Question 56

Compare and contrast the political and religious structures of the Indianized kingdoms in southeast Asia.

Question 57

Discuss the changes in the social world of postclassical India.How do changes in the caste system reflect this process?

Question 58

Examine the development of Hinduism in response to the spread of Islam.What other religions have gone through periods of transition in response to outside threats?

Question 59

How did Indian agriculture improve in the postclassical era? What was the impact of these improvements on the population of the subcontinent?

Question 60

Examine the political structure of India after the collapse of Gupta rule.What role did Harsha play during this period?

Question 61

To what extent did Indian culture penetrate southeast Asia before the arrival of Muslim traders in the eighth century?

Question 62

What were some of the specialized goods and manufactures to emerge from India into the world markets at this time?

Question 63

What was the function of the Hindu temple within Chola society?