History: 2011: CBSE: [Delhi]: Set – III

(a) The most distinctive feature of the Harappan cities was the regularity and order in the town planning. The basic unit of city planning was the individual house.
(b) The roads and streets in the lower part of the town were broadly laid out in a grid pattern, intersecting at right angles.

Francois Bernier was a doctor and a Frenchman. He was a political philosopher and historian. He visited the Mughal Empire in search of opportunities and stayed in India for 12 years from 1656 to 1668. He was the physician to Prince Dara Shukoh, the eldest son of Emperor Shah Jahan.

Firstly, bhaktas of the protest movement hailed from diverse social backgrounds ranging from Brahmanas to artisans and cultivators and even from castes considered “untouchable”. Secondly, even women participated in this movement.

The figures of mortality and disease were difficult to collect because deaths were not always reported and illness was not always reported or treated by medical practitioner.

After his release in 1924, Gandhiji devoted himself to the promotion of Khadi and worked for the abolition of untouchability.

Higher varnas regarded some activities such as handling corpses and dead animals as polluting. A section of the society who performed such tasks was designated as Chandalas. They were placed at the bottom of the hierarchy. Manusmriti is considered as a foundational work of Hindu law and ancient Hindu society. It laid down the duties of the chandalas. 
a. They had to live outside the village.
b. They had to use discarded utensils and wear clothes of the dead and ornaments of iron. 
c. They could not roam around in villages and cities at night.
d. They had to dispose of the bodies of those who had no relatives and serve as executioners.

The Brahmanas laid down in great detail the codes of social behaviour. From c. 500 BCE, these norms were compiled in Sanskrit texts known as the Dharmasutras and Dharmashastras. Rules related to marriage were also laid down in these texts.
a. These texts recognised as many as eight forms of marriage. Of these, the first four were considered as “good” while the remaining were condemned. The last four forms were practised by those who did not accept Brahmanical norms.
b. Marrying daughters outside the kin was considered desirable.
c. After the marriage, women had to give up their father’s gotra and adopt that of their husbands’.
d. Members of same gotra could not marry.
e. Intermarriage amongst members of the four varnas was not allowed. 

The mid first millennium BCE is regarded as the turning point in the world history because it was during this time that great thinkers such as Zarathustra in Iran, Kong Zi in China, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Greece, Mahavira and Gautama Buddha in India emerged. They tried to understand the mysteries of existence and relationship between the humans and the cosmic order. In India, this was also the time when cities were developing and social and economic life was changing in a variety of ways in the Ganga valley. These thinkers of India attempted to understand these developments as well.

Buddhist texts mention as many as 64 sects or schools of thought. These texts give a glimpse of lively debates and discussions among people of different schools of thought.

Teachers of different schools of thought travelled from one place to another. They tried to convince one another as well as laypersons about the validity of their philosophy or the way they understood the world. Debates took place in the kutagarashala – literally, a hut with a pointed roof – or in groves where travelling mendicants halted. The various debates and discussions centered upon, 
a. the meaning of life, 
b. the possibility of life after death and rebirth, 
c. the nature of the ultimate reality, 
d. the significance of the sacrificial tradition.

Krishnadeva Raya belonged to the Tuluva dynasty. His rule was characterised by full expansion and consolidation. He brought under his control the land between the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers called - the Raichur doab in the year 1512. He defeated Pratap Rudra of Gajapati dynasty, the ruler of Orissa in 1514 and the Sultan of Bijapur in 1520. His rule is credited with building of fine temples and attractive gopurams to some important south Indian temples, e.g. the gopuram of the Brihadishvara Temple. He also founded the suburban township near Vijayanagara called Nagalapuram named after his mother. Strain began to show within the imperial structure following Krishnadeva Raya’s death in 1529.