UPSC Essentials | Daily Quiz : History and Culture on Temples, Relics, National Monuments Authority, and more (Week 139)

UPSC Essentials brings to you its initiative of daily subject-wise quizzes. These quizzes are designed to help you revise some of the most important topics from the static part of the syllabus. Attempt today’s subject quiz on History and Culture to check your progress. Find links to previous quizzes for UPSC towards the end of the article.

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1. It is believed to be the first among the 12 jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva.

2. Congress leader K M Munshi proposed to reconstruct the temple in the years soon following the Independence of the country.

3. In 1783, the Maratha queen Ahalyabai is known to have erected a shrine for the deity a little distance away from the ruins of the old temple.

Earlier this month, as PM Narendra Modi inaugurated a range of projects at the Somnath Temple in Gujarat, he cited the number of times it was raided and how it re-emerged every single time. Such forces and empires “can become dominant for some time in a given era, but can never become permanent. They cannot keep humanity suppressed for long,” he said while virtually laying down the foundation stone of the Parvati Temple at Somnath. “This was as true when some tyrannical forces were razing Somnath (temple) as it is today, when the world is apprehensive of such ideologies.”

While Modi’s speech was aimed at the recent takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban forces, the narrative of the Somnath Temple’s destruction and resurrection has indeed served political purposes, both during the colonial period and in an independent India.

Located at Veraval in the western coast of Gujarat, the Somnath Temple is believed to be the first among the 12 jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva. The site, which was part of the erstwhile princely state of Junagadh, was also connected to Lord Krishna. The political history of the shrine is traced back to a thousand years when in 1024 CE, during the reign of the Chalukya king Bhima I it was attacked by Turkik ruler Mahmud of Ghazni. An archaeological report submitted in 1950 by the department of archaeology, headed by B K Thapar, suggests that following the demolition by Ghazni, the temple was rebuilt once again by Hindu rulers. It was once again desecrated in 1297 CE when Alaf Khan, a general of the Khilji rulers in Delhi, attacked it. In the next few centuries, the temple was rebuilt on multiple occasions and desecrated in 1349 CE, 1413 CE and 1459 CE. It was once again demolished in 1699 by Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, suggests the report as cited by anthropologist Peter van der Veer in a 1992 research paper. Finally, in 1783, the Maratha queen Ahalyabai is known to have erected a shrine for Somnath a little distance away from the ruins of the old temple.

Therefore, c is the correct answer.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated ‘The Light and the Lotus: Relics of the Awakened One’, an exhibition in New Delhi, recently. To what is this exhibition is primarily dedicated?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate “The Light and The Lotus: Relics of the Awakened One”, an exhibition in New Delhi on Saturday (January 3) to present the Piprahwa Gems, the sacred Buddhist relics. The relics, which were taken by an Englishman from their resting place in India in 1898, were returned to the country last year, the Ministry of Culture said.

The antiquities include a collection of 349 gemstones, which were unearthed in 1898 by William Claxton Peppé, an English estate manager, at a Buddhist stupa in Piprahwa, a village in UP’s Siddharthnagar district, near the border of Nepal.

These gems were passed down for generations in the Peppé family and were put up for auction by Chris Peppé in 2013. The gems had been listed for auction last May by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, which estimated an estimated selling price of over $100 million.

Also part of the collection are the sacred bones and ash, believed to be of Lord Buddha himself. Viceroy Elgin had donated these to Siamese King Rama V.

Therefore, b is the correct answer.

Which of the following Governor-Generals said about Awadh, ‘A cherry that will drop into our mouth one day’?

“A cherry that will drop into our mouth one day” refers to Awadh, described this way by British Governor-General Lord Dalhousie in 1851, foreshadowing its annexation by the British East India Company in 1856 due to perceived mismanagement, serving British economic and strategic interests.

Therefore, d is the correct answer. Why is “Parakram Diwas” celebrated in India?

Since 2021, January 23, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary, has been observed as “Parakram Diwas,” or the Day of Valour. The government decided to celebrate Parakram Diwas to inspire the people of the country, especially the youth, to act with fortitude in the face of adversity as Netaji did and to infuse them with a spirit of patriotic fervour.

With reference to National Monuments Authority (NMA), consider the following statements: 1. It has been setup under the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, as per provisions of The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains AMASR (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2010.

2. The Union Minister for Culture is the Chairman of the Authority.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

“National Monuments Authority (NMA) under the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India has been setup as per provisions of The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains AMASR (Amendment and Validation) Act, 2010 which was enacted in March, 2010. Several functions have been assigned to the NMA for the protection and preservation of monuments and sites through management of the prohibited and regulated area around the centrally protected monuments. One amongst these responsibilities of NMA is also to consider grant of permissions to applicants for construction related activity in the prohibited and regulated area.”

The Act provides for NMA to be constituted with a Chairperson and up to 5 Whole Time and 5 Part Time Members each and a Member Secretary. DG ASI is an ex officio Member. Union Minster is not the Chiarman. Prof. Kishor K. Basa is the current Chairman.

Therefore, a is the correct answer.

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