From Harappa to the Mauryas

In Sindhi, the name of this Indus city means 'mound of the dead men'. Which city is it?

• Pataliputra
• Harappa
• Mohenjo-daro
• Lothal

Answer: Mohenjo-daro. Mohenjo-daro, in Sindh, Pakistan, is home to the Great Bath, a large brick tank probably used for ritual bathing.

Lothal in Gujarat is famous for which ancient Harappan structure?

• A rock-cut temple
• A dockyard
• An iron pillar
• A great stupa

Answer: A dockyard. Lothal had one of the world's earliest known dockyards, linking the town to the sea trade of the Gulf of Khambhat.

Small square stone seals like these, found in Harappan cities, carry short lines of a script. What do historians say about that script today?

• It reads like early Brahmi
• It has not yet been deciphered
• It was cracked using a bilingual stone
• It was written from left to right

Answer: It has not yet been deciphered. No one has yet read the Harappan script with certainty. Scholars think it ran mostly from right to left and had around 400 signs.

Ashoka's grandfather overthrew the Nanda kings of Magadha and became its new ruler. Who was he?

• Bindusara
• Samudragupta
• Chandragupta Maurya
• Bimbisara

Answer: Chandragupta Maurya. Chandragupta founded the Maurya Empire around 321 BCE. His son Bindusara ruled next, then Ashoka.

The Arthashastra, a guide to running a kingdom, is credited to Chandragupta's clever adviser. Who?

• Aryabhata
• Panini
• Kalidasa
• Chanakya

Answer: Chanakya. Chanakya, also called Kautilya, is traditionally believed to have been Chandragupta's minister.

After seeing thousands die in one war, Ashoka gave up conquest for good. Which war?

• Battle of Haldighati
• Battle of Panipat
• Kalinga War
• Battle of Plassey

Answer: Kalinga War. The bloodshed at Kalinga, in present-day Odisha, turned Ashoka towards Buddhism and his message of dhamma.

This sandstone capital from Sarnath has four lions standing back to back. How many of them can you see on India's national emblem?

• Two lions
• Three lions
• Four lions
• One lion

Answer: Three lions. The emblem, adopted in 1950, shows three lions; the fourth is hidden from view. The motto Satyameva Jayate sits below.

Ashoka's inscriptions, like these on a stone pillar, mostly call the king by a title meaning 'pleasant to behold'. What is it?

• Chakravartin
• Maharajadhiraja
• Vikramaditya
• Piyadassi

Answer: Piyadassi. James Prinsep, who deciphered Brahmi in the 1830s, found that most inscriptions named a king Piyadassi. A few also called him Asoka.

Bimbisara ruled Magadha from a fortified city ringed by hills in Bihar, before the capital moved to Pataliputra. Name it.

• Rajagriha (Rajgir)
• Vaishali
• Kannauj
• Ujjain

Answer: Rajagriha (Rajgir). Rajagaha, today's Rajgir, was a fortified town ringed by hills. In the 4th century BCE the capital moved to Pataliputra, modern Patna.

Greek accounts based on the envoy Megasthenes describe Pataliputra's wall with 570 towers and 64 gates. Digs at Patna show it was made mainly of what?

• Stone
• Baked brick
• Iron
• Wood

Answer: Wood. Excavations at Patna found long stretches of a wooden palisade, matching Greek writers who described a wooden wall.

Many Harappan cities had a smaller, raised part on the west and a larger lower town to the east. What do archaeologists call the raised part?

• Citadel
• Stupa
• Granary
• Palace

Answer: Citadel. The citadel stood high because its buildings sat on mud-brick platforms. At Mohenjo-daro it held the Great Bath and a warehouse.

The famous 'Dancing Girl' from Mohenjo-daro, standing with one hand on her hip, is made of which metal?

• Gold
• Bronze
• Iron
• Silver

Answer: Bronze. She was cast in bronze by the lost-wax method more than 4,000 years ago, and is now in the National Museum, New Delhi.

Harappan traders used cube-shaped stone weights. The smaller ones went 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32. What is the rule behind them?

• Each is double the one before
• Each adds 2 to the one before
• Each is ten times the one before
• Each adds 4 to the one before

Answer: Each is double the one before. The small weights doubled each time, while the bigger ones followed a decimal pattern such as 160, 200 and 320.

The stupa shown on the back of today's ₹200 note was first built in Ashoka's time. Where is it?

• Sarnath
• Bodh Gaya
• Sanchi
• Amaravati

Answer: Sanchi. The Reserve Bank put the Sanchi Stupa, in Madhya Pradesh, on the ₹200 note to show India's heritage.

Harappan craftspeople got copper from the Khetri area of Rajasthan, and probably by sea from which land in West Asia?

• Egypt
• Greece
• Turkey
• Oman

Answer: Oman. Omani copper and Harappan objects share traces of nickel, and a Harappan jar has been found in Oman.