UPSC STATIC QUIZ – Art and Culture : 8 January 2024

Solution: b)

Paryushan Parv is a significant festival in Jainism, observed by both Digambara and Shwetambar communities.

Spiritual Significance: Paryushan Parv inspires individuals to cultivate virtuous qualities. It involves fasting, penance, meditation, and self-reflection, aiming for soul purification and vowing to avoid future transgressions. It’s a time for seeking righteousness and spiritual purity, ultimately aiming for salvation.

Five Duties of Paryushan: These include Samvatsari (forgiveness and reconciliation), Keshlochan (introspection and self-improvement), Pratikraman (seeking forgiveness for past wrongdoings), Penance (commitment to spiritual growth), and self-criticism and apology for past mistakes.

Solution: b)

Statement 1 is incorrect.

Bojjannakonda, a centuries-old Buddhist heritage site in (at Sankaram, near Visakhapatnam) Andhra Pradesh.

The main stupa at Bojjannakonda is a rock-carved structure covered with bricks and adorned with Buddha sculptures. Lingalametta boasts rows of rock-cut monolithic stupas.

These sites show elements of all the three Buddhist phases:

• Theravada(Lord Buddha was considered a teacher)
• Mahayana(Buddhism was more devotional)
• Vajrayana(Buddhist tradition was more practised as Tantra and in esoteric form)

The site is famous for many votive stupas, rock-cut caves, brick-built edifices, early historic pottery, and Satavahana coins that date back to the 1st century AD.

Solution: a)

The Phanigiri Buddhist artefacts, discovered in 1942 and dating from 200 BCE to 400 CE, are currently showcased at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in an exhibition called “The Tree and Serpent.”

Phanigiri, often referred to as the “hillock of snake hood,” is a small village approximately 150 km from Hyderabad, with significant historical and spiritual significance in Buddhism.

Findings at Phanigiri:

• Remarkable findings at Phanigiri are a set of thoranas, which are stone gateways, and one of these thoranas displays both Mahayana and Hinayana schools of Buddhist thought, suggesting coexistence despite philosophical differences.
• Phanigiri provides evidence of the deification of Buddha and a transition towards canonization and ritual in Buddhist practices.
• The artefacts from this site, including a limestone carving of Buddha wearing what appears to be a Roman toga, are considered highly important and are now part of the exhibition in New York.

Solution: c)

Kapilvastu is in southern Nepal, near the Indian border. Lumbinī is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Nepal. It is the place where, according to Buddhist tradition, queen Maya gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama at around 566 BCE.

Solution: c)

The Shakyas who ruled Kapilavastu after Buddha’s Parinirvana did not have an army, and many were massacred in Sagarahawa. Eventually, the remaining Shakyas fled to different parts of Greater Magadha and to far-flung places like Gandhara (modern-day Afghanistan) and Burma (Myanmar). Many also went to the Kathmandu valley and were granted a status comparable to that of the Vajracharya priests, but they were not permitted to practise priesthood outside of their families.