UPSC Prelims 2020 History and Culture questions: topic-wise weightage
UPSC Prelims 2020 asked 19 history questions in GS Paper I, spread over 5 topics. See the history weightage for 2020 below, then attempt each question with the official answer and an explanation.
History and Culture 2020: questions by topic
- Buddhism, Jainism and other sects3
- Mauryas to Guptas: Sangam age and early medieval kingdoms6
- Reform movements, 1857, tribal and peasant revolts, early nationalism (to 1919)8
- Gandhian era to Independence; constitutional development1
- Painting, performing arts, crafts, literature, philosophy and festivals1
Counted from the 19 questions on this page, tagged by topic in the Battle IAS PYQ bank.
Seeing 19 History and Culture questions spread over 5 topics can feel overwhelming. That's exactly why the Battle IAS PYQ Book maps every question topic by topic, so you know what to study first. Download free sample
Buddhism, Jainism and other sects 3
With reference to the religious history of India, consider the following statements :
- 1. Sthaviravadins belong to Mahayana Buddhism.
- 2. Lokottaravadin sect was an offshoot of Mahasanghika sect of Buddhism.
- 3. The deification of Buddha by Mahasanghikas fostered the Mahayana Buddhism.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
Answer (b) & explanation
Statements 2 and 3 are correct (b). Statement 1 is wrong because the Sthaviravadins ("elders") are the root of the Hinayana schools, such as Theravada, not Mahayana. At the Second Buddhist Council (Vaishali, about 383 BCE), the Sangha split into the Sthaviravadins and the Mahasanghikas over monastic rules. Statement 2 is right because the Lokottaravadins were an offshoot of the Mahasanghikas. They saw the Buddha as lokottara, above the world. Statement 3 is right because this raising of the Buddha into a divine figure led towards Mahayana.
Notice the four councils: Rajagriha (Ajatashatru), Vaishali (Kalashoka), Pataliputra (Ashoka) and Kashmir (Kanishka). Pali was declared a classical language in 2024.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the cultural history of India, which one of the following is the correct description of the term ‘paramitas’ ?
Answer (c) & explanation
Paramitas are perfections on the bodhisattva path (c). In Mahayana Buddhism, the paramitas are the "perfections" that a bodhisattva practises on the way to Buddhahood. The six classic ones are dana (generosity), shila (morality), kshanti (patience), virya (effort), dhyana (meditation) and prajna (wisdom). They are sometimes extended to ten. The Prajnaparamita sutras, which include the Heart Sutra, are named after the last. Option (a) describes the Dharmasutras. Option (b) describes the nastika schools, such as Buddhism, Jainism and Charvaka. Option (d) describes guilds such as the Ayyavole (Ainnurruvar) and Manigramam.
Notice Nagarjuna, who founded the Madhyamaka school and taught at Nagarjunakonda and Amaravati in Andhra.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the cultural history of India, consider the following pairs :
- 1. Parivrajaka — Renunciant and Wanderer
- 2. Shramana — Priest with a high status
- 3. Upasaka — Lay follower of Buddhism
Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched ?
Answer (b) & explanation
Pairs 1 and 3 are correct (b). Pair 1 is right: a parivrajaka was a wandering renouncer who left home to seek truth, common in the age of the Buddha and Mahavira. Pair 2 is wrong: shramanas were ascetics outside the Brahmanical order, such as Buddhist, Jain and Ajivika monks, and they rejected priestly rank and Vedic ritual. A priest of high status would be a Brahmin or purohita. Pair 3 is right: an upasaka (male) or upasika (female) was a lay Buddhist who took the three refuges and the five precepts but did not become a monk.
Notice the Buddhist community: the sangha of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, plus lay followers. Notice too Makkhali Gosala, who led the Ajivikas.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Mauryas to Guptas: Sangam age and early medieval kingdoms 6
Consider the following events in the history of India:
- 1. Rise of Pratiharas under King Bhoja
- 2. Establishment of Pallava power under Mahendravarman — I
- 3. Establishment of Chola power by Parantaka — I
- 4. Pala dynasty founded by Gopala
What is the correct chronological order of the above events, starting from the earliest time ?
Answer (c) & explanation
The order is 2-4-1-3 (c). Mahendravarman I of the Pallavas ruled from about 600 to 630 CE. He built rock-cut temples and wrote the play Mattavilasa Prahasana. Gopala was chosen king in Bengal around 750 CE, founding the Pala dynasty, a rare case of an elected king. Mihira Bhoja brought the Pratiharas to their height from about 836 CE. Parantaka I ruled from 907 CE and spread Chola power, though Vijayalaya founded the line around 850.
These three dynasties, the Palas, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas, fought the tripartite struggle for Kannauj. Notice the Pala legacy: Dharmapala founded Vikramashila university, and Nalanda flourished under them.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Which of the following phrases defines the nature of the ‘Hundi’ generally referred to in the sources of the post-Harsha period ?
Answer (c) & explanation
A hundi was a bill of exchange (c). A hundi was a written order by which a merchant could pay money at a distant place through a banker there. A trader in one town paid money to a shroff (sarraf), who gave him a hundi that could be cashed in another town. This meant traders did not have to carry cash over unsafe roads. It was in use from the early medieval period and through Mughal times, run by networks of shroffs and Marwari bankers. It was not a royal advisory (a), an account diary (b), or a feudal order (d).
Notice the modern echo: the hawala system works in a similar way, but illegally. Hundis were a key part of India's pre-colonial banking system.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the history of India, the terms “kulyavapa” and “dronavapa” denote
Answer (a) & explanation
They denote measurements of land (a). Gupta-period land grants from Bengal, such as those at Paharpur and Damodarpur, measure land in kulyavapa and dronavapa. The names come from the amount of seed needed to sow the plot: a kulya or a drona measure. A kulyavapa was larger, about eight dronavapas. These grants show that land was being bought and sold, and given to Brahmins and Buddhist monasteries. They were not coins (b), urban land classes (c) or rituals (d).
Notice other Gupta land terms: nivartana in central and western India, and padavarta. The Gupta land grants are used by historians to argue that Indian feudalism grew in this period, with agraharas and rights over villagers passing to grantees.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Who among the following rulers advised his subjects through this inscription ?
“Whosoever praises his religious sect or blames other sects out of excessive devotion to his own sect, with the view of glorifying his own sect, he rather injures his own sect very severely.”
Answer (a) & explanation
Ashoka issued this advice (a). The lines come from Ashoka's Major Rock Edict XII, which is about respect between religious sects. It asks people to control their speech (vachaguti), not to praise their own sect or criticise others without reason, and to listen to the teachings of other sects. Ashoka said that whoever glorifies his own sect by running down others actually harms it. This tolerance was a key part of his dhamma. Samudragupta (b) is known from the Allahabad Pillar praise by Harisena. Harshavardhana (c) held assemblies at Kannauj and Prayag. Krishnadeva Raya (d) wrote Amuktamalyada.
Notice that Ashoka's edicts were mostly in Prakrit and Brahmi, with Kharosthi, Greek and Aramaic in the north-west.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the period of Gupta dynasty in ancient India, the towns Ghantasala, Kadura and Chaul were well known as
Answer (a) & explanation
They were ports handling foreign trade (a). Ghantasala and Kadura (Koduru) lay on the Andhra coast near the Krishna delta, and Chaul on the Konkan coast near Mumbai. In the Gupta period and earlier, these ports traded with South-east Asia, the Roman world and the Arabs, exporting textiles, spices and gems. Option (b) is wrong: they were not royal capitals. Option (c) is wrong: they were not known for stone art. Option (d) is a trap: Ghantasala had a Buddhist stupa, but here it is grouped as a port.
Notice other ports of the time: Tamralipti in Bengal and Bharukachchha (Broach). Notice too the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which lists ports of the early centuries AD.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the history of India, consider the following pairs :
| Famous Place | Present State
| 1. Bhilsa | Madhya Pradesh
| 2. Dwarasamudra | Maharashtra
| 3. Girinagar | Gujarat
| 4. Sthanesvara | Uttar Pradesh
Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched ?
Answer (a) & explanation
Pairs 1 and 3 are correct (a). Pair 1 is right: Bhilsa is the old name of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, near Sanchi, where the Heliodorus pillar stands. Pair 2 is wrong: Dwarasamudra (Halebidu) was the Hoysala capital in Karnataka, not Maharashtra. Pair 3 is right: Girinagar is Girnar near Junagadh, Gujarat, the site of Ashoka's edicts and Rudradaman's inscription. Pair 4 is wrong: Sthanesvara (Thanesar), the first capital of Harsha's Pushyabhuti family, is in Haryana, not Uttar Pradesh.
Notice that Sudarshana lake at Girnar was built under the Mauryas and repaired by Rudradaman and later by Skandagupta. Harsha later moved his capital to Kannauj.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Reform movements, 1857, tribal and peasant revolts, early nationalism (to 1919) 8
With reference to the history of India, consider the following pairs :
- 1. Aurang — In-charge of treasury of the State
- 2. Banian — Indian agent of the East India Company
- 3. Mirasidar — Designated revenue payer to the State
Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched ?
Answer (b) & explanation
Pairs 2 and 3 are correct (b). Pair 1 is wrong because an aurang (Persian for "workshop") was a place where goods, usually cloth, were made or collected before export. It did not mean a treasury officer. Pair 2 is right because a banian was the Indian agent or broker of a Company merchant, handling trade, money and translation. Pair 3 is right because mirasidars in the Madras region held hereditary rights in village land and were treated as the revenue payers to the state under the ryotwari settlement.
Notice the related terms: gomastha, the Company's paid Indian agent who supervised weavers; dadni, cash advances to weavers; and dubash, an interpreter in Madras. Such terms often appear in questions on early Company trade.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Which of the following statements correctly explains the impact of Industrial Revolution on India during the first half of the nineteenth century ?
Answer (a) & explanation
Indian handicrafts were ruined (a). After the Charter Act of 1813 ended the Company's trade monopoly, cheap machine-made British cloth flooded India under one-way free trade. British goods entered India with very low duties, while Indian goods faced high duties in Britain. This ruined Indian handicrafts, especially weaving, and towns such as Dhaka, Murshidabad and Surat declined. This process is called deindustrialisation. Option (b) is wrong because the first cotton mill came only in 1854. Option (c) is wrong because railways began only in 1853. Option (d) is wrong because duties on British imports were very low.
Notice the result: millions of artisans moved to farming, adding to pressure on land. Dadabhai Naoroji's Drain Theory and R.C. Dutt described this.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the book “Desher Katha” written by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar during the freedom struggle, consider the following statements :
- 1. It warned against the Colonial State’s hypnotic conquest of the mind.
- 2. It inspired the performance of swadeshi street plays and folk songs.
- 3. The use of ‘desh’ by Deuskar was in the specific context of the region of Bengal.
Which of the statements given above are correct ?
Answer (a) & explanation
Statements 1 and 2 are correct (a). Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, a Marathi scholar living in Bengal, wrote the Bengali book Desher Katha (1904). It set out the British economic drain of India, drawing on Naoroji and others. Statement 1 is right because it warned against the colonial state's "hypnotic conquest" of Indian minds, which made people accept British rule as natural. Statement 2 is right because it sold thousands of copies, inspired swadeshi street plays (jatras) and folk songs, and was banned in 1910. Statement 3 is wrong because Deuskar's "desh" meant India as a whole, not Bengal alone.
Deuskar was among the first to use the word "swaraj" in Bengal. Notice the other swadeshi writers: Rabindranath Tagore, Mukunda Das (jatra) and Aurobindo.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
The Vital-Vidhvansak, the first monthly journal to have the untouchable people as its target audience was published by
Answer (a) & explanation
Gopal Baba Walangkar published it (a). Walangkar, a Mahar ex-soldier and follower of Jyotiba Phule, started Vital-Vidhvansak ("Destroyer of Brahmanical pollution") in 1888. It was the first monthly journal aimed at untouchable readers. He also petitioned against the ban on Mahars joining the army. Jyotiba Phule (b) founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873) and wrote Gulamgiri; the paper Deenbandhu (1877) was linked to his movement. Gandhi (c) started Harijan in 1933. Ambedkar (d) launched Mooknayak in 1920, and later Bahishkrit Bharat (1927).
Notice Ambedkar's other milestones: the Mahad Satyagraha (1927) for water rights, the burning of the Manusmriti (1927), and the Poona Pact (1932).
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
In the context of Indian history, the Rakhmabai case of 1884 revolved around
- 1. women’s right to gain education
- 2. age of consent
- 3. restitution of conjugal rights
Select the correct answer using the code given below :
Answer (b) & explanation
The case revolved around age of consent and restitution of conjugal rights (b). Rakhmabai was married at 11 to Dadaji Bhikaji but stayed with her mother and refused to live with him. In 1884, he sued for restitution of conjugal rights (3), and the court finally ordered her to join him or go to jail. She chose jail, and the case ended in a compromise. The public debate it caused helped lead to the Age of Consent Act, 1891 (2), which raised the age of consent from 10 to 12, backed by Behramji Malabari. Statement 1 is wrong because education was not the issue.
Rakhmabai later trained in London and became one of India's first practising women doctors. Notice Anandibai Joshi, often called the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree (1886).
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Indigo cultivation in India declined by the beginning of the 20th century because of
Answer (b) & explanation
New inventions made it unprofitable (b). In 1897, the German firm BASF began selling synthetic indigo, made in factories from chemicals. It was cheaper and more uniform than natural dye, and soon took over world markets. India's indigo exports collapsed by around 1914, with a brief revival during World War I. Option (a) is wrong because the Blue Mutiny (1859–60) drove planters out of Bengal, but they moved to Bihar, and the global decline came later. Option (c) is wrong because national leaders were not the cause; Gandhi's Champaran campaign (1917) came after the decline began. Option (d) is wrong because the government mostly supported the planters.
Notice Nil Darpan (1860) by Dinabandhu Mitra, the famous play on the planters' cruelty.
Peasant revolts did push the planters out of Bengal, but that does not explain an India-wide fall around 1900.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Wellesley established the Fort William College at Calcutta because
Answer (d) & explanation
Wellesley wanted to train British civilians for administration (d). Lord Wellesley set up Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800 to train young Company civil servants in Indian languages, law, history and customs, so they could govern better. The Court of Directors in London did not ask for it (a); they disliked its cost and set up their own East India College at Haileybury in 1806. Option (b) is wrong because reviving oriental learning was not its main purpose, though it helped. Option (c) is wrong because William Carey did teach Bengali and Sanskrit there, but that was a result, not the reason.
Notice its legacy: scholars like John Gilchrist helped develop modern Hindustani and Bengali prose. It closed in 1854.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following events ?
Answer (d) & explanation
Ulgulan describes Birsa Munda's revolt (d). Birsa Munda called on the Mundas of Chotanagpur to rise against landlords, moneylenders, missionaries and the British. They were destroying the khuntkatti system of communal land ownership and forcing beth begari (unpaid labour). Birsa also started a religious movement, calling himself a prophet. The rising of 1899–1900 is called the Ulgulan, or Great Tumult. Birsa died in Ranchi jail in June 1900, at about 25. The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (1908) followed, banning the transfer of tribal land to outsiders. The 1857 revolt (a), the Mappila Rebellion (b) and the Indigo Revolt (c) are different events.
Notice that 15 November, his birthday, is Janjatiya Gaurav Divas. His 150th birth anniversary was marked in 2025.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
Gandhian era to Independence; constitutional development 1
The Gandhi-Irwin Pact included which of the following ?
- 1. Invitation to Congress to participate in the Round Table Conference
- 2. Withdrawal of Ordinances promulgated in connection with the Civil Disobedience Movement
- 3. Acceptance of Gandhiji’s suggestion for enquiry into police excesses
- 4. Release of only those prisoners who were not charged with violence
Select the correct answer using the code given below :
No official answer (question dropped) & notes
UPSC dropped this question from evaluation, so no answer was scored. Under the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (5 March 1931), the Congress agreed to suspend Civil Disobedience and attend the Second Round Table Conference (1). The government agreed to withdraw the ordinances issued against the movement (2) and to release political prisoners not charged with violence (4). It also allowed people near the coast to make salt for their own use and gave back confiscated land not yet sold. Statement 3 was rejected: Irwin refused Gandhi's demand for an enquiry into police excesses. So options with 1, 2 and 4 come closest, but the wording "only those prisoners" made the question unclear.
Notice the Karachi session (1931), which approved the pact and passed the Fundamental Rights resolution. Bhagat Singh was hanged that same month.
UPSC did not evaluate this question, so no official answer exists. Use it for practice only.
UPSC dropped this question from evaluation; there is no official answer.
Painting, performing arts, crafts, literature, philosophy and festivals 1
With reference to the scholars/litterateurs of ancient India, consider the following statements :
- 1. Panini is associated with Pushyamitra Shunga.
- 2. Amarasimha is associated with Harshavardhana.
- 3. Kalidasa is associated with Chandra Gupta — II.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
Answer (c) & explanation
Only statement 3 is correct (c). Statement 1 is wrong because Panini, who wrote the Sanskrit grammar Ashtadhyayi, lived around the 5th–4th century BCE, well before the Shungas (from about 185 BCE). It was Patanjali, author of the Mahabhashya on Panini's grammar, who lived under Pushyamitra Shunga. Statement 2 is wrong because Amarasimha, who wrote the Sanskrit dictionary Amarakosha, is placed among the "nine gems" of Chandragupta II, not Harsha. Statement 3 is right because Kalidasa is also placed among those nine gems.
Notice Harsha's own circle: Banabhatta, who wrote Harshacharita and Kadambari. Harsha himself wrote three plays: Nagananda, Ratnavali and Priyadarsika.
Statement 1 swaps the grammarians: Patanjali, not Panini, goes with Pushyamitra.
Answer as per the official UPSC answer key.
All years by topic
Every question from 2011 to 2026, grouped by syllabus topic, with year-wise trends.