PAPER-III

INDIAN CULTURE


PAPER III ¯ÖÏ¿®Ö¯Ö¡Ö III
Note This paper is of two hundred marks containing four sections. Candidates are required to attempt the questions contained in these sections according to the detailed instructions given therein.


SECTION I
ÜÖÞ›ü I

Note This section consists of two essay type questions of twenty marks each, to be answered in about five hundred words each. ×20 40 Marks)

1. Discuss the main sources for the study of Indian Culture.

2. Write an essay on the standard of living of the medieval Indian nobles.

3. Examine the Gandhian concept of Hind Swaraj.

4. Describe the salient features of the Gupta art.

5. How far the inter-religion marriage between Mughals and Rajputs could be considered as hall mark of composite culture Explain with examples.

6. Evaluate Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's role as a traditional moderniser.



SECTION II


Note This section contains three questions from each of the electives/specializations. The candidate has to choose only one elective/specialization and answer all the three questions contained therein. Each question carries fifteen marks and is to be answered in about three hundred words. ×
15 45 Marks)


7. Examine the main teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

8. Describe the main features of the Stupa architecture.

9. What is the significance of Purushartha in ancient Indian society


10. Comment on the role of guilds in the economic life of the early medieval India.

11. How was Sama perceived by the conservative Ulema and the liberal minded Sufis

12. Discuss briefly the development of music and dance under Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin of Kashmir.


13. Discuss the role of brokers as a social class in trade and commerce in the late pre-colonial India.

14. Analyse the role of ideology in the emergence of Indian nationalism.

15. How did the British Policy of open trade affect the traditional industries of India



Note This section contains nine questions of ten marks each, each to be answered in about fifty words. ×
10 90 Marks)


16. Write a short note on stone sculptures of Indus Valley.

17. Comment on the Vesara style of temples.

18. Discuss the significance of Gupta gold coins.

19. What is Wilayat

20. Highlight the significance of Dara Sheekoh's Majma-ul-Bahrain .

21. Comment on the socio-cultural significance of the Langarkhana as an institution in the Sikh Gurudwaras.

22. Identify the major trends of the Dalit movement.

23. Examine Rabindranath Tagore's ideas on Swadeshi Samaj.

24. Write a note on the early school of modern Indian painting.

SECTION IV

Note This section contains five questions of five marks each based on the following

passage. Each question should be answered in about thirty words. ×5 25 Marks)


25. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow based on your understanding of the same.

During medieval times (thirteenth to seventeenth centuries) Hinduism underwent a transformation so great that it has been compared to that wrought in Western Christianity by the Reformation. The focus of religious attention moved from the great Gods and the liturgies connected with polytheism to the one God and his avatars, especially Krishna and Rama. A new attitude to God, emotional, passionate bhakti, replaced the old approaches of sacrificial rite and monistic meditation, just as a new mysticism, practical yet ecstatic, replaced the former philosophical type. Forms of religious expression changed love-songs to the Lord were sung, and group singing created a new popular cultural form, the kirtan. Pushing aside old Gods, old attitudes, old cultural forms, the new movement also drove the sacred language, Sanskrit, back into the memories of the pandits and the deepest precincts of temples and monasteries. In the first centuries of their growth all modern Indian vernacular literatures were moulded by this religious movement, and thus were essentially mass literatures. The socio-ritualistic order dominated by the Brahmans was not overthrown, but the Brahmans lost much of their spiritual authority, which passed to the saints and the gurus, whose songs and biographies soon became a new scripture. The new devotional religion, without destroying the Hindu social framework, fostered ideas of brotherhood and equality before the loving Lord, and its saints drawn from all levels of society proclaimed that in bhakti caste had no meaning.


Explain the shift in the Hindu polytheistic practice during medieval times.

26. How did it change the earlier attitude to God

27. How did the transition encourage the vernacular

28. What was its impact on the Brahmin

29. Did it change the medieval Hindu Society