Vijayanagara, Marathas & Regional Kingdoms — PPSC previous year questions

The Battle of Talikota (Rakshasi-Tangadi) was fought on 23 January 1565. The combined armies of the Deccan Sultanates of Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda and Bidar routed the Vijayanagar army. Rama Raya was captured and killed. The capital Hampi was sacked and abandoned. The empire never recovered its former power. The Aravidu rulers moved the capital to Penukonda and later Chandragiri. Hampi had been the capital since the 14th century, and the Bahmani Sultanate had already broken up into the five Deccan Sultanates by 1527.

Shivaji was crowned at Raigad fort in 1674, not at Purandar, so statement 1 is wrong. He did build the sea fort of Sindhudurg as a naval base to protect the Konkan coast, and he used Ganimi Kava (guerrilla warfare) against the Mughals, so 2 and 3 are correct.

The August Offer of 1940 did offer Dominion Status as the goal of British policy in India. So statement 1 is correct. The silver Rupaya was first struck by Sher Shah Suri (1540–45), not Akbar. Nadir Shah sacked Delhi in 1739, in the reign of Muhammad Shah. That is more than two centuries after Sikandar Lodi (d. 1517). So statements 2 and 3 are both wrong.

Rudrama Devi ruled the Kakatiya kingdom from Warangal (present Telangana) in the 13th century and was one of the few women to rule as a monarch in medieval India.

The sixteenth-century South Indian scholar Appaya Dikshita expounded the 'Shivadvaita' philosophy, bringing together Vedanta (Advaita) and Shaiva belief; he wrote the commentary 'Shivarkamanidipika' on Srikantha's bhashya of the Brahma Sutras. Narayana Bhatta and Raghunandana were writers on dharmashastra (smriti), while Madhavacharya founded the Vaishnava Dvaita school.

Tanaji Malusare, Shivaji's trusted commander, captured Kondhana fort from the Mughals in a night attack (usually dated February 1670) and died in the fight. Shivaji is said to have mourned 'the fort is won, but the lion is lost', and the fort was renamed Sinhagad, the Lion's Fort.

Foreign visitors record that women worked as wrestlers, astrologers and soothsayers, that the city had seven lines of fortification, and that Devaraya II enlisted Muslims in his army. The Amuktamalyada of Krishnadevaraya advises that Brahmans be put in charge of forts, not made provincial governors, so statement III is wrong.

Firdausi (Abul Qasim Firdausi) completed the Persian epic Shahnama around 1010 CE at the court of Mahmud of Ghazni, who was famous for patronising scholars such as Al-Biruni, Utbi and Unsuri. Ghori, Iltutmish and Alauddin Khilji ruled later and had no connection with the poet.

Kalhana wrote the Rajatarangini ("River of Kings") in Sanskrit in 1148–49 CE. It traces the rulers of Kashmir from legendary times to his own day. Many call it the first work of Indian history in the modern sense. Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita on the Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI. Banabhatta wrote the Harshacharita. Vakpati composed the Gaudavaho on Yashovarman of Kannauj.

Hampi, on the bank of the Tungabhadra river in Karnataka (Ballari district, now Vijayanagara district), was the capital of the Vijayanagar empire founded by Harihara and Bukka in 1336. The city was sacked after the Battle of Talikota (1565); its ruins, including the Virupaksha and Vittala temples and the stone chariot, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1986). Bijapur and Golconda were capitals of the rival Deccan sultanates.