India, That Is Bharat — Quiz

Q1. Why does the chapter say that the India we know today is very different from the region 2,000 or 5,000 years ago?

• A. Because no people lived here in ancient times
• B. Because today it is a modern nation with defined borders, while earlier names and boundaries kept shifting
• C. Because the rivers had not yet formed
• D. Because the Himalayas did not exist then

Q2. According to the chapter, the many names of India come down to us from which kinds of sources?

• A. Only modern newspapers
• B. Ancient texts, accounts of travellers and pilgrims, and inscriptions
• C. Only coins minted by foreign kings
• D. Only oral folk songs of villages

Q3. The Mahabharata lists 'Kurukshetra' as a region. This roughly corresponds to which present-day area?

• A. Parts of Haryana
• B. Parts of Bengal
• C. Parts of Kerala
• D. Parts of Assam

Q4. Which Mahabharata region roughly corresponds to today's Kutch?

• A. Vanga
• B. Pragjyotisha
• C. Kaccha
• D. Kashmira

Q5. In the Rig Veda, what did the word 'Bharata' originally refer to?

• A. A river in the northwest
• B. One of the main Vedic groups of people
• C. A famous snowy mountain
• D. The capital city of Ashoka

Q6. A student says Persians called India 'Hind' or 'Hindu'. From which word did these names come?

• A. Bharata
• B. Sindhu
• C. Jambu
• D. Yindu

Q7. In ancient Persian, the word 'Hindu' was used in what sense?

• A. As a religious term
• B. As a purely geographical term
• C. As the name of a king
• D. As the name of a river god

Q8. Why did the ancient Greeks drop the initial 'h' when they formed 'Indoi' from 'Hindu'?

• A. The letter 'h' did not exist in their Greek language
• B. They wanted to honour the Persians
• C. They confused India with Ionia
• D. They thought 'h' was sacred

Q9. A 2,000-year-old Tamil poem praises a king known 'from Cape Kumari in the south' to the 'great mountain in the north'. 'Cape Kumari' marks which boundary?

• A. The northern boundary
• B. The southern boundary
• C. The eastern boundary
• D. The western boundary

Q10. In the Vishnu Purana's description of Bharata, the 'snowy mountains' to the south of which the land lies refer to

• A. The Vindhyas
• B. The Himalayas
• C. The Western Ghats
• D. The Aravallis

Q11. After travelling in India, Xuanzang returned to China after how many years and did what with the manuscripts he carried back?

• A. After 17 years; translated them from Sanskrit into Chinese
• B. After 5 years; sold them to merchants
• C. After 50 years; buried them in a stupa
• D. After 1 year; burnt them

Q12. The Chinese word 'Tianzhu', also derived from 'Sindhu', could also be understood as 'heavenly master'. What does this reflect?

• A. Chinese fear of Indian armies
• B. The respect the ancient Chinese had for India as the land of the Buddha
• C. A trade treaty between China and India
• D. The name of a Chinese emperor

Q13. The Hindi version of the Indian Constitution expresses 'India, that is Bharat' as

• A. Hindustan arthath Bharat
• B. Bharat arthath India
• C. Bharatvarsh yani Hind
• D. Jambudvipa yani India

Q14. When Ashoka used 'Jambudvipa' for the whole of India, this then included which present-day areas besides India?

• A. China and Myanmar
• B. Bangladesh, Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan
• C. Sri Lanka and the Maldives
• D. Iran and Iraq

Q15. Which term used in the Mahabharata clearly extends to the entire Indian Subcontinent and includes the names of numerous rivers and peoples?

• A. Sapta Sindhava
• B. Bharatavarsha
• C. Kurukshetra
• D. Kashmira