Art, Culture and Heritage for CUET General Aptitude

AnswerB · Kathak

1. Kathak is the one classical form that belongs to north India.

2. It moved from temple storytelling into Mughal and Rajput courts, which is where its spins, its footwork and its Persian-influenced costume come from.

3. Its three main gharanas are named for Lucknow, Jaipur and Banaras.

AnswerC · Tamil Nadu

1. Bharatanatyam comes from the temple dance of Tamil Nadu.

2. It was performed in temples by devadasis, and was revived as a concert form in the twentieth century.

3. Its grammar is drawn from the Natya Shastra, the Sanskrit treatise on performance.

AnswerC · Andhra Pradesh

1. Kuchipudi takes its name from the village of Kuchipudi in the Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.

2. It began as dance-drama performed by troupes of Brahmin men and later became a solo form danced by women as well.

AnswerA · Manipuri

1. Manipuri, from Manipur, grew around the Vaishnava Ras Lila and is danced with soft, flowing movements.

2. The dancers' feet do not strike the ground hard, and ankle bells are usually not worn.

AnswerB · Assam

1. Sattriya grew out of the monasteries, or sattras, founded in Assam by the Vaishnava saint Sankaradeva in the fifteenth century.

2. It was danced as part of monastic worship long before it was performed on a stage.

3. The Sangeet Natak Akademi recognised it as a classical form in 2000, which is why it is often listed last.

AnswerA · Kathakali and Mohiniyattam

1. Kathakali and Mohiniyattam are both Keralan.

2. Kathakali is the elaborately masked and costumed dance-drama; Mohiniyattam is the solo form, gentler in movement and traditionally danced by women.

3. Kathak sounds like Kathakali but is from north India, and the two have nothing in common beyond the Sanskrit root for 'story'.

AnswerC · Odissi

1. The tribhanga, or three-bend posture, is the signature of Odissi.

2. The same stance is carved into the sculpture of the Odisha temples the dance grew alongside, which is the argument for its antiquity.

3. Odissi was danced in the Jagannath temple at Puri by maharis, and later by boys called gotipuas.

AnswerB · Noble heroes and gods

1. Kathakali codes character by colour. Pacha, green, marks noble and virtuous figures such as Krishna, Rama and Arjuna.

2. Kathi, with red marks on green, is for arrogant villains, and minukku, a soft yellow-orange, for women and sages.

AnswerD · Carnatic

1. Carnatic is the classical music of southern India; Hindustani is that of the north.

2. Both share the concepts of raga and tala and diverged from a common root, largely after the arrival of Persian influence in the north.

3. Dhrupad and thumri are not systems but forms within Hindustani music.

AnswerD · The rhythmic cycle of a piece

1. Tala is the rhythmic cycle — the pattern of beats the piece is set in.

2. Raga is the melodic framework, the set of notes and the rules for moving between them.

3. The two are independent: the same raga may be sung in several talas.

AnswerD · Shehnai

1. Bismillah Khan brought the shehnai, a double-reed wind instrument once played mainly at weddings and temples, onto the concert stage.

2. He was closely identified with Varanasi and played at the Red Fort on the eve of Independence in 1947.

AnswerB · sitar

1. Ravi Shankar was a sitar player of the Maihar gharana and a student of Allauddin Khan.

2. He received the Bharat Ratna in 1999.

3. The santoor is linked with Shivkumar Sharma, and the flute with Hariprasad Chaurasia.

AnswerD · Dhrupad

1. Dhrupad is the oldest surviving form of Hindustani classical singing.

2. It is deliberately austere, gives a long unmetred alap before the composition, and avoids ornament for its own sake.

3. Khayal displaced it as the dominant concert form from the eighteenth century onwards.

AnswerD · The mridangam

1. The mridangam, a double-headed barrel drum, accompanies most Carnatic concerts.

2. The tabla plays that role in Hindustani music, and the pakhawaj accompanies dhrupad.

AnswerD · Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri

1. Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri are the Carnatic Trinity.

2. All three lived around the same time, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and much of the standard concert repertoire is theirs.

3. Purandara Dasa is revered as the father of Carnatic music, but he came earlier and is not one of the three.

AnswerB · Avanaddha

1. Avanaddha covers instruments sounded by striking a stretched membrane, which is what a drum is.

2. Tata covers stringed instruments such as the sitar and the veena, and sushira the wind instruments such as the flute and the shehnai.

3. Ghana covers solid instruments that sound without a membrane or string, such as the ghatam and the manjira.

AnswerD · Assam

1. Bihu belongs to Assam and marks the Assamese agricultural year.

2. The best known of the three Bihus is Rongali or Bohag Bihu, which falls in April and is the Assamese new year.

3. The name resembles Bihar, which is the trap, but the two are unconnected.

AnswerA · Gujarat

1. Garba belongs to Gujarat and is danced around a lamp or an image of the goddess during the nine nights of Navratri.

2. UNESCO added the Garba of Gujarat to its intangible cultural heritage list in 2023.

AnswerC · Punjab

1. Giddha is the women's folk dance of Punjab, performed with clapping and short sung couplets called boliyan.

2. Bhangra, the men's dance, grew out of harvest celebrations in the same region.

AnswerD · Karnataka

1. Yakshagana is the traditional dance-drama of coastal Karnataka.

2. It takes its stories from the epics and the Puranas and is performed through the night in the open.

3. Its costume and make-up resemble Kathakali's, which is why the two are confused, but Kathakali is Keralan.

AnswerD · Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal

1. Chhau is performed in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal, with a distinct style in each.

2. The Seraikella and Purulia styles use masks; the Mayurbhanj style does not, which is a standard point of difference.

3. Its vocabulary borrows openly from martial training, which is what sets it apart from the classical forms.

AnswerA · Rajasthan

1. The Kalbelia are a Rajasthani community traditionally known as snake-charmers.

2. The women's dance, in swirling black skirts, imitates the movements of a snake, accompanied by the been and the dholak.

AnswerC · Tamasha

1. Tamasha is the folk theatre of Maharashtra, built on song, dance and broad comedy.

2. Nautanki belongs to Uttar Pradesh and the surrounding region, and Jatra to Bengal and Odisha.

3. Bhavai is Gujarati, and is the one most easily swapped with Tamasha because the two regions adjoin.

AnswerA · Koodiyattam

1. Koodiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre of Kerala, was proclaimed in 2001 in UNESCO's first such round.

2. It is performed in temple theatres called koothambalams and a single act can run for several nights.

3. Ramlila followed in 2005 and Chhau in 2010, so all three are on the list but only one was first.

AnswerA · Madhya Pradesh

1. Sanchi is in Madhya Pradesh.

2. The original brick stupa was built under Ashoka in the third century BCE and was enlarged in stone afterwards.

3. Its carved gateways, the toranas, are later than the stupa itself and are what the site is best known for.

AnswerD · his wife Mumtaz Mahal

1. The Taj Mahal is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan's wife, who died in 1631.

2. It stands on the Yamuna at Agra; Shah Jahan himself was later buried beside her.

AnswerC · Nagara

1. Nagara is the northern style, and its mark is the curvilinear shikhara rising over the sanctum.

2. Dravida is the southern style, where the tallest structure is the gopuram over the gateway rather than over the sanctum.

3. Vesara is the hybrid of the two found in the Deccan.

AnswerB · A chariot with wheels and horses

1. Konark is built as the chariot of the sun god, with carved stone wheels along its base and horses drawing it forward.

2. It was raised in the thirteenth century by Narasimhadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty.

3. It stands in Odisha and is a World Heritage Site.

AnswerA · Begun by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, completed by Iltutmish

1. Qutb-ud-din Aibak began the Qutb Minar at the end of the twelfth century and raised only the first storey.

2. Iltutmish, his successor, added three more.

3. Firoz Shah Tughlaq repaired the top after lightning damage much later, which is why his name is attached to it too.

AnswerC · The Chandelas

1. The Chandela rulers built the Khajuraho temples, mostly between about 950 and 1050 CE.

2. They are in the Nagara style, and both Hindu and Jain temples stand in the group, which is a World Heritage Site.

AnswerD · Bijapur

1. Gol Gumbaz is at Bijapur, in Karnataka, and is the tomb of Mohammed Adil Shah.

2. Its dome rests on interlocking arches rather than on external buttresses, which is what allows the interior to be a single unbroken chamber.

3. The gallery running round the base of the dome carries a whisper across the whole width, which is what it is known for.

AnswerB · Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah

1. Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of the Golconda sultanate built the Charminar when he founded Hyderabad as his new capital.

2. Mohammed Adil Shah of Bijapur is the ruler buried in the Gol Gumbaz, and the Nizams ruled Hyderabad much later.

AnswerB · Maharashtra

1. Ajanta is in the Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) district of Maharashtra, cut into a horseshoe-shaped cliff above the Waghora river.

2. Its caves date from about the second century BCE to the sixth century CE, and the Ellora caves are in the same district.

AnswerC · Kaziranga National Park

1. Kaziranga is inscribed under the natural criteria, for its habitat and its one-horned rhinoceros population.

2. Khajuraho, Hampi and Fatehpur Sikri are all cultural sites — monuments and built settlements.

3. The World Heritage list keeps the two categories separate, and a site is inscribed under one, the other, or both.

AnswerB · The World Heritage Committee

1. The World Heritage Committee, made up of states parties elected to it, decides what is inscribed.

2. It works under the World Heritage Convention of 1972, and a country can nominate only sites within its own territory.

3. ICOMOS advises the Committee on cultural nominations but does not itself inscribe anything.

AnswerA · The Vijayanagara empire

1. Hampi was the capital of the Vijayanagara empire, at its height in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

2. The city was sacked in 1565 after the battle of Talikota, which is why it survives as ruins rather than as a living city.

3. It lies on the Tungabhadra in Karnataka and is a World Heritage Site.

AnswerC · Ajanta Caves, Ellora Caves, Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal

1. Ajanta, Ellora, Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal were all inscribed in 1983, the first year India had sites on the list.

2. India had ratified the World Heritage Convention shortly before, in 1977.

3. The other groups are all real World Heritage Sites, inscribed in later years.

AnswerC · Khangchendzonga National Park

1. Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim is India's only mixed site.

2. It qualifies naturally for its mountain ecosystem and culturally for the sacred meaning the peak and the landscape hold for the communities around it.

3. The other three are inscribed under the natural criteria alone.

AnswerA · Santiniketan

1. Santiniketan, in West Bengal's Birbhum district, was inscribed in September 2023 as a cultural World Heritage Site.

2. Tagore set up a school there in 1901, which grew into the Visva-Bharati university in 1921.

3. Jorasanko is Tagore's family home in Kolkata, not a World Heritage Site.

AnswerA · Bihar

1. Madhubani comes from the Mithila region of northern Bihar.

2. It was made on the walls and floors of houses for weddings and festivals long before it was painted on paper for sale.

3. Its second name, Mithila, is simply the name of the region.

AnswerC · Tamil Nadu

1. Tanjore painting takes its name from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, where it flourished under the Maratha rulers of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

2. Its subjects are mostly Hindu gods, painted on wooden boards and set with gold foil and glass pieces.

AnswerD · Madhya Pradesh

1. Gond painting is made by the Gond people of central India, and its best-known centre is Patangarh in the Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh.

2. The artist Jangarh Singh Shyam brought it from walls onto paper and canvas in the 1980s.

AnswerC · Maharashtra

1. Warli is the painting of the Warli people of Maharashtra, in the region north of Mumbai.

2. Human figures are drawn as two triangles meeting at a point, with a circle for the head.

3. It is painted in rice paste on walls coated with cow dung and earth, which gives the characteristic two-colour look.

AnswerD · Odisha

1. Pattachitra is chiefly Odishan, and its subjects centre on Jagannath and the temple at Puri.

2. A related tradition of the same name exists in West Bengal, where the painted scroll is sung as it is unrolled.

3. The word itself is the description: patta is cloth and chitra is picture.

AnswerA · Pahari miniature

1. Kangra and Basohli are both Pahari schools, from the hill states of the western Himalaya.

2. Basohli work is bold, with strong colour and beetle-wing cases used for jewellery; Kangra work is softer and more lyrical.

3. Their subject is largely the Krishna literature, particularly the Gita Govinda.

AnswerC · Andhra Pradesh

1. Kalamkari belongs to Andhra Pradesh, with two distinct centres.

2. At Srikalahasti the design is drawn freehand with a pen, which is what the name means — kalam is pen.

3. At Machilipatnam it is block-printed instead, so the same name covers two different techniques.

AnswerC · Uttar Pradesh

1. Banarasi saris are woven in and around Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh.

2. The name is a registered geographical indication, so only saris woven in the defined area may be sold as Banarasi.

AnswerB · Karnataka

1. Channapatna lies between Bengaluru and Mysuru in Karnataka and is often called the toy town.

2. The toys are turned on a lathe from soft wood and coloured with lacquer and natural dyes; they carry a GI tag.

AnswerA · The Ministry of Commerce and Industry

1. The Geographical Indications Registry works under the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks.

2. That office sits in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

3. The governing law is the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.

AnswerA · Tying the cloth in small knots before dyeing it

1. Bandhani is a tie and dye technique: the cloth is tied into thousands of tiny knots, which resist the dye.

2. Untying them leaves the pattern of undyed dots that gives the fabric its look.

3. The word comes from the same root as bandhan, to tie.

AnswerD · Ladakh and the high Himalaya

1. Pashmina comes from the Changthangi goat, reared on the high, cold plateau of Ladakh and the neighbouring Himalaya.

2. The fibre is the animal's winter undercoat, which it grows against extreme cold and sheds in spring.

3. It is combed out rather than shorn, which is part of why the quantity from each animal is so small.

AnswerD · Karnataka

1. Bidriware is named after Bidar, in northern Karnataka, where it grew under the Bahmani sultans.

2. An alloy of zinc and copper is cast, inlaid with silver, and blackened with a paste of soil from the area, which leaves the silver shining against a dark ground.

AnswerB · Darjeeling tea

1. Darjeeling tea was the first Indian product registered as a geographical indication, in 2004-05.

2. A GI ties a name to a place, so only tea grown in the defined Darjeeling area may be sold under it.

3. The others are all registered GIs, but later ones.

AnswerB · Madhya Pradesh

1. Both are from Madhya Pradesh, and both are named for the towns they are woven in.

2. Chanderi is known for its sheer, almost transparent ground; Maheshwari for its reversible border.

3. The Maheshwari weave is traditionally credited to the patronage of Ahilyabai Holkar at Maheshwar.

AnswerA · Tamil Nadu

1. Pongal is the Tamil harvest festival and runs over several days in mid-January.

2. It falls at the same point in the solar year as Makar Sankranti in the north, Magh Bihu in Assam and Lohri in Punjab.

3. The dish the festival is named for is boiled over until it spills, which is what pongal means.

AnswerA · Kerala

1. Onam is Kerala's harvest festival, held in the Malayalam month of Chingam, in August or September.

2. It celebrates the yearly return of the legendary king Mahabali; flower carpets called pookalam and snake-boat races are part of it.

AnswerB · Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik

1. The Kumbh is held in turn at Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik.

2. Each stands on a river: the Ganga-Yamuna confluence, the Ganga, the Shipra and the Godavari.

3. The other groups are all sets of pilgrimage towns, but none of them is the Kumbh circuit.

AnswerB · Nagaland

1. The Hornbill Festival is held at Kisama in Nagaland every December.

2. It was begun by the state government to bring the Naga tribes together in one place and to draw visitors.

3. It takes its name from the hornbill, a bird that appears throughout Naga folklore and dress.

AnswerC · Rajasthan

1. Pushkar is in Rajasthan, near Ajmer.

2. The fair is both a cattle and camel market and a pilgrimage, since Pushkar holds one of the very few temples to Brahma.

3. It is held around the Kartik Purnima full moon, in November.

AnswerD · Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh

1. Chhath belongs to Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the neighbouring parts of Jharkhand and Nepal.

2. It is one of very few Indian festivals addressed directly to the sun, and the only major one where the setting sun is worshipped before the rising sun.

3. The rituals are performed on a riverbank or the edge of a tank, standing in the water.

AnswerD · Durga Puja

1. Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed on UNESCO's list in December 2021.

2. UNESCO recognised it as a festival of public art as well as worship, with its themed pandals and images made by the artisans of Kumartuli.

3. Rath Yatra is the festival of Puri, in Odisha.

AnswerA · Gurmukhi

1. Punjabi in India is written in Gurmukhi, which was standardised by Guru Angad, the second Sikh Guru.

2. In Pakistan, Punjabi is written in the Perso-Arabic Shahmukhi script.

AnswerC · a Perso-Arabic script, written from right to left

1. Urdu uses a form of the Perso-Arabic script, usually in the Nastaliq style, and is read from right to left.

2. Spoken Urdu and Hindi are very close; the scripts are what most visibly separate them.

AnswerB · Tamil

1. Tamil was declared a classical language in 2004, and was the first.

2. Sanskrit followed in 2005, and Telugu and Kannada together in 2008.

3. The status carries recognition and funding for study of the language rather than any constitutional consequence.

AnswerB · Twenty-two

1. The Eighth Schedule lists twenty-two languages.

2. It began with fourteen and has been added to by amendment since.

3. The most recent addition was of four languages by the Ninety-second Amendment in 2003: Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali.

AnswerC · Gujarati

1. Gujarati has its own script, related to Devanagari but distinct, and written without the connecting headline.

2. Marathi, Nepali and Konkani are all written in Devanagari.

3. The missing headline across the top of the letters is the quickest way to tell Gujarati apart.

AnswerA · Hindi in the Devanagari script

1. Article 343(1) makes Hindi in the Devanagari script the official language of the Union.

2. The same Article provided for English to continue in official use for fifteen years from the commencement of the Constitution.

3. Parliament later legislated to let English continue beyond that period, which is why it is still in use.

AnswerA · Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali

1. Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali were approved together in October 2024.

2. That took the number of classical languages from six to eleven.

3. Malayalam and Odia had already been granted the status earlier, in 2013 and 2014.

AnswerD · Indian cinema

1. It is the highest official recognition for lifetime work in Indian cinema.

2. It is presented as part of the National Film Awards by the Government of India.

3. It is named for Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who made the first full-length Indian feature film.

AnswerB · New Delhi

1. The National School of Drama was set up in New Delhi in 1959, first under the Sangeet Natak Akademi and later as an autonomous body.

2. Pune is home to a different institution, the Film and Television Institute of India.

AnswerB · Kolkata

1. The Victoria Memorial in Kolkata opened in 1921, when the city had already stopped being the capital of British India.

2. It is now a museum under the Ministry of Culture, with paintings and records of the colonial period.

AnswerB · The Lalit Kala Akademi

1. The Lalit Kala Akademi is the national academy of fine arts.

2. The Sangeet Natak Akademi covers music, dance and drama, and the Sahitya Akademi covers literature.

3. All three were set up in the first years after Independence and work under the Ministry of Culture.

AnswerC · Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri

1. Padma Vibhushan is the highest of the three, then Padma Bhushan, then Padma Shri.

2. They are announced on Republic Day each year and conferred by the President later.

3. The Bharat Ratna is a separate and higher honour, not one of the Padma awards.

AnswerB · Literature in an Indian language

1. The Jnanpith is a literary award, and is generally described as India's highest.

2. It is open to writing in the languages of the Eighth Schedule and in English.

3. It is given by the Bharatiya Jnanpith, a trust, rather than by the government.

AnswerA · The Indian Museum, Kolkata

1. The Indian Museum in Kolkata was founded in 1814 and is the oldest in the country.

2. It grew out of the collections of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

3. The National Museum in New Delhi is much later, opening after Independence.