History: 2014: CBSE: [Delhi]: Set – I

• There were five political centres in the Mauryan Empire. Apart from the capital Patliputra, there were provincial centres namely Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali and Suvarnagiri.
• Asoka held his Empire together through the propagation of Dhamma.

• Sufism had developed into a movement with the establishment of several Khanqahs controlled by a teaching master called Shaikh. The Khanqah served as a body of literature on Quranic studies and Sufi practices.
• When a Shaikh died, his tomb (Dargah) became centre of devotion by his disciples.

• The colonial government was keen on mapping as it felt that good maps were necessary to understand the landscape and know the topography.
• This knowledge would allow better control over the region.
• Maps were prepared not only to plan the development of these towns but also to develop commerce and consolidate power.

• The settlement at Mohenjodaro is divided into two sections, one smaller but higher and the other much larger but lower.
• Archaeologists described them as the Citadel and the Lower Town respectively. The Citadel is built on mud brick platforms.
• Both the Citadel and Lower Towns are walled. Once the platforms were in place, all building activity within the city was restricted to a fixed area on the platforms. So it seems that the settlement was first planned and then implemented accordingly.
• Other signs of planning include bricks, which, whether sun-dried or baked, were of a standardised ratio, where the length and breadth were four times and twice the height respectively.

The original story of Mahabharata was probably composed by charioteer-bards known as sutas who generally accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battlefield and composed poems celebrating their victories and other achievements.
These compositions circulated orally. The Brahmanas may have put the story in writing during the fifth century BCE. This coincides with the period when chiefdoms of Kurus and Panchalas were developing into kingdoms.
• Historians consider several elements while analyzing the Mahabharata. They examine whether texts were written in Prakrit, Pali or Tamil, languages that were probably used by ordinary people, or in Sanskrit, a language meant almost exclusively for priests and elites.
• They also consider the kinds of text. Were these mantras, learned and chanted by ritual specialists, or stories that people could have read, or heard, and then retold if they found them interesting?
• Besides, they try to find out about the authors whose perspectives and ideas shaped the text, as well as the intended audience, as, very often, authors keep the interests of their audience in mind while composing their work.
• They try and ascertain the possible date of the composition or compilation of the texts as well as the place where they may have been composed. It is only after making these assessments that they draw on the content of texts to arrive at an understanding of their historical significance.

• The Buddha’s teachings have been mainly reconstructed from stories in the Sutta Pitaka.
• Some stories describe his miraculous powers while others suggest that the Buddha tried to convince people through reason and persuasion. For example, when a grief-stricken woman whose child had died came to the Buddha, he gently convinced her about the inevitability of death rather than bring her son back to life.
• According to Buddhist philosophy, the world is transient (anicca) and constantly changing; it is also soulless (anatta) as there is nothing permanent or eternal in it. Within this transient world, sorrow (dukkha) is intrinsic to human existence. It is by following the path of moderation between severe penance and self-indulgence that human beings can rise above these worldly troubles.
• The Buddha regarded the social world as the creation of humans rather than of divine origin. Therefore, he advised kings and gahapatis to be humane and ethical. Individual effort was expected to transform social relations.
• The Buddha emphasised individual agency and righteous action as the means to escape from the cycle of rebirth and attain self-realisation and nibbana, literally the extinguishing of the ego and desire – and thus end the cycle of suffering for those who renounced the world.
• According to Buddhist tradition, his last words to his followers were: “Be lamps unto yourselves as all of you must work out your own liberation.”

• Domingo Paes has collectively termed the Audience Hall and the Mahanavmi Dibba as the “House of Victory”.
• The audience hall is a high platform with slots for wooden pillars at close and regular intervals. The pillars are so closely spaced, that there is hardly any free space. Therefore, it is not clear what the hall was used for. It had a staircase going up to the second floor, which rested on these pillars.
• The Mahanavmi Dibba is located at one of the highest points of the city. It is a massive platform rising from a base of about 11,000 sq. ft to a height of 40 ft. There is evidence that it supported a wooden structure. The base of the platform is covered with carvings.
• The rituals associated with the structure probably coincided with the ten day festival of Mahanavami. The Vijayanagara kings displayed their prestige and power on this occasion.
• The ceremonies performed on the occasion included worship of the image, worship of the state horse, and the sacrifice of buffaloes and other animals. Dances, wrestling matches, and processions of caparisoned horses, elephants and chariots and soldiers, as well as ritual presentations before the king and his guests by the chief nayakas and subordinate kings marked the occasion.
• These ceremonies were imbued with deep symbolic meanings. On the last day of the festival, the king inspected his army and the armies of the nayakas in a grand ceremony in an open field.
• On this occasion, the nayakas brought rich gifts for the king as well as the stipulated tribute.

• Forest dwellers were termed jangli in Mughal era texts.
• Being jangli, however, did not mean an absence of “civilisation”, as the term implies today. Rather, the term described those whose livelihood came from the gathering of forest produce, hunting and shifting agriculture.
• These activities were largely season specific. Among the Bhils, for example, spring was reserved for collecting forest produce, summer for fishing, the monsoon months for cultivation, and autumn and winter for hunting.
• Such a sequence presumed and perpetuated mobility, which was a distinctive feature of tribes inhabiting these forests.

• As settled agriculture expanded, forests and pastures began to shrink. This sparked a conflict between the Paharias and settled cultivators. The former began to raid settled villages with increasing regularity, carrying away food grains and cattle.
• Exasperated colonial officials tried desperately to control and subdue the Paharias. But they found the task difficult.
•  In the 1770s, the British embarked on a brutal policy of extermination, hunting the Paharias down and killing them.
• Then, by the 1780s, Augustus Cleveland, the Collector of Bhagalpur, proposed a policy of pacification. Paharia chiefs were given an annual allowance and made responsible for the proper conduct of their men.
• They were expected to maintain order in their localities and discipline their own people. Many Paharia chiefs refused the allowances.
• Those who accepted, most often lost authority within the community. Being in the pay of the colonial government, they came to be perceived as subordinate employees or stipendiary chiefs.

How did British dispossess Taluqdars of Awadh during 1857? Explain with examples .

• The annexation of Awadh dispossessed the taluqdars of the region. The countryside of Awadh was dotted with the estates and forts of taluqdars who for many generations had controlled land and power in the countryside.
• Before the coming of the British, taluqdars maintained armed retainers, built forts, and enjoyed a degree of autonomy, as long as they accepted the suzerainty of the Nawab and paid the revenue of their taluqs. Some of the bigger taluqdars had as many a12,000-foot soldiers and even the smaller ones had about 200.
• The British were unwilling to tolerate the power of the taluqdars. Immediately after the annexation, the taluqdars were disarmed and their forts destroyed.
• The British land revenue policy further undermined the position and authority of the taluqdars. After annexation, the first British revenue settlement, known as the Summary Settlement of 1856, was based on the assumption that the taluqdars were interlopers with no permanent stakes on the land: they had established their hold over land through force and fraud.
• The Summary Settlement proceeded to remove the taluqdars wherever possible. Figures show that in pre-British times, taluqdars had held 67 percent of the total number of villages in Awadh; by the Summary Settlement this number had come down to 38 percent.
• The taluqdars of southern Awadh were the hardest hit and some lost more than half of the total number of villages they had previously held.