Read the following excerpts carefully and answer the questions that follow.

The world beyond the palace:

Just as the Buddha’s teachings were compiled by his followers, the teachings of Mahavira were also recorded by his disciples. These were often in the form of stories, which could appeal to ordinary people. Here is one example from a Prakrit text known as the Uttaradhyayana Sutta, describing how a queen named Kamalavati tried to persuade her husband to renounce the world:

If the whole world and all its treasures were yours, you would not be satisfied, nor would all this be able to save you. When you die, O king and leave all things behind, dhamma alone, and nothing else, will save you. As a bird dislikes the cage, so do I dislike (the world), I shall live as a nun without offspring, without desire, without the love of gain, and without hatred ...

Those who have enjoyed pleasures and renounced them, move about like the wind, and go wherever they please, unchecked like birds as their flight.

Leave your large kingdom ... abandon what pleases the senses, be without attachment and property, then practise severe penance, being firm of energy ...

A. Name the text from which this excerpt has been taken. What is the language of the text?

B. What did queen Kamalavati ask the king to renounce?

C. Describe the main principles of Jainism.

What does the motif of a woman, surrounded by lotuses and elephants, depict? State the two opinions.

State the social groups from which the followers of Buddha came.

Discuss the contents of Jatakas. What do they depict?

Describe how in the case of Vaishnavism, cults developed around the various avatars of the deity.

“Buddhism grew rapidly both during the life time of the Buddha and also after his death.” Justify the statement.

Explain the variety of sources used by the historians to reconstruct histories of religious traditions.

Were the ideas of the Upanishadic thinkers different from those of the fatalists and materialists? Give reasons for your answer.

Summarise the central teachings of Jainism.

Discuss the role of the begums of Bhopal in preserving the stupa at Sanchi.

Or

“The Begums of Bhopal played a significant role in preserving the remains of stupa at Sanchi.” Support this statement with suitable evidence.

Read this short inscription and answer the questions that follow:

In the year 33 of the maharaja Huvishka (a Kushana ruler), in the first month of the hot season on the eighth day, a Bodhisatta was set up at Madhuvanaka by the bhikkhuni Dhanavati, the sister’s daughter of the bhikkhuni Buddhamita, who knows the Tipitaka, the female pupil of the bhikkhu Bala, who knows the Tipitaka, together with her father and mother.

A. How did Dhanavati date her inscription?

B. Why do you think she installed an image of the Bodhisatta?

C. Who were the relatives she mentioned?

D. What Buddhist text did she know?

E From whom did she learn this text?