Important Questions for Class 7

Social Science - Our Past 2

Chapter 2 – New Kings and Kingdoms

Very Short Answer Questions: 1 Mark

1. Fill in the blanks:
i. Kitab al-Hind was written by ____.
Ans. Kitab al-Hind was written by Al-Biruni.
ii. Prithviraj III was the ruler of ____.
Ans. Prithviraj III was the ruler of Delhi.
iii. Somnath temple was destroyed by _____.
Ans. Somnath temple was destroyed by Sultan Mahmud.
iv. ‘Ur’ is the testaments of ____.
Ans. ‘Ur’ is the testaments of peasants.

2. State true and false:

i. Traders used to pay revenue.
Ans. True
ii. Rent was the resources obtained from the producers.
Ans. True
iii. Learned Brahmans used to write the Prashastis.
Ans. True
iv. Kalhana was a great poet from Kashmir.
Ans. True
3. Match the following:
i. Rashtrakutas Tamil Nadu

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 ii. Cholas Gujarat and Rajasthan
iii. Palas Bengal
iv. Gurjara-Pratiharas Western Deccan
Ans.
i. Rashtrakutas Western Deccan
ii. Cholas Tamil Nadu
iii. Palas Bengal
iv. Gurjara-Pratiharas Gujarat and Rajasthan

4. Choose the correct option:

i. ____ were the two major cities under the control of Chahamanas.
(a) Delhi
(b) Ajmer
(c) Rajasthan
(d) (a) and (b)
(e) (c) and (a)
Ans. (d) a and b
ii. Prithviraj-III was the famous ruler of___.
(a) Delhi
(b) Madhya Pradesh
(c) Rajasthan
(d) Mysore
Ans. (a) Delhi

5. Define the Following

i. Nagarams

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Ans. Association of traders that used to be involved in administrative works at times
were referred to as nagarams.
ii. Brahmadeya
Ans. Brahmanas of the society were often given land grants termed as brahmadeya.

Short Answer Questions: 2 Marks

6. Which parties participated in the ‘tripartite struggle’?
Ans. The Gurjar-Pratiharas, the Rashtrakutas, and the Palas were the three parties
that participated in the ‘tripartite struggle’, a conflict that arose to take control over
the city of Kanauj.

7. Who were called ‘nadu’?

Ans. The peasants had settlements of their own which were termed as ‘ur’. With the
development and spread of irrigation agriculture, those ‘Urs’ became prosperous.
Groups of such villages or ‘urs’ formed larger units that came to be known as ‘nadu’.

8. What was a ‘sabha’?

Ans. The land grants or ‘brahmadeya’ received by Brahmanas were often looked
after by an assembly or a prominent class of Brahmana landholders called ‘sabha’.

9. Who were Samantas?

Ans. By the seventh century, there was the emergence of a community of big
landlords or warrior chiefs in various regions of the Indian subcontinent. The kings
ruling at that time used to address them as their subordinates known as ‘Samantas’.

10. Who were Maha-samantas?

Ans. When subordinates of the kings known as Samantas gained power and wealth,
they used to declare themselves and came to be known as Maha-Samanthas.

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Short Answer Questions: 3 Marks
11.How did the new rulers emerge?
Ans. The emergence of new rulers can be described as follows—
● By the seventh century, there was the emergence of a community of big
landlords or warrior chiefs known as ‘samantas’ in various regions of the Indian
subcontinent.
● With time they came to be acknowledged as the subordinates of the ruling kings
or overlords. Their tasks include presenting gifts and military support to the
kings.
● Over time, as the samantas gained more power and wealth, they acquired more
strength and declared themselves as ‘maha-samantas’, ‘maha-mandaleshvaras’,
etc.
● In many instances, they gained so much power that they overpowered their
landlords or the existing kings and established themselves as the new rulers. For
example, the Rashtrakutas of Deccan were initially the ‘samantas’ of the
Chalukya kings. But later, they overthrew the Chalukyas and established
themselves as new rulers.

12.How did the Dantidurga become a Kshatriya?

Ans. Dantidurga’s journey to becoming a Kshatriya is as follows—
● The Rashtrakutas of Deccan were initially the subordinates or ‘samantas’ of the
ruling Chalukyas of Karnataka.
● However, the Rashtrakutas went on gaining more and more power over time.
● Hence when Dantidurga became the Rashtrakuta chief, he became powerful
enough and overthrew his Chalukya overlord.
● Then, he performed a ritual known as ‘hiranya-garbha’. This ritual was
supposed to give ‘rebirth’ to the sacrificer (Dantidurga), even if he was not a
Kshatriya by birth.
Thus, by the successful completion of the ‘hiranya-garbha’ ritual, Dantidurga
became a Kshatriya.

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13.What was the process of controlling the financial condition in the states?
Ans. The financial conditions in the states were controlled by the following
process—
● People from influential families or the king’s close friends and relatives were
appointed for revenue collection from the states.
● They used to collect revenue from peasants, artisans, traders, cattle keepers,
and other producers.
● These revenues were then used to meet all the finances of the states like
maintenance of the king’s establishment, construction of structures like temples
and forts, and fighting wars.
● Apart from the revenues, good financial conditions of the state were also
maintained by the wealth that is obtained by plundering and looting other
kingdoms during wars and by accessing land and trade routes.

14.Discuss about ‘Prashastis’.

Ans. ‘Prashastis’ can be defined as follows—
● ‘Prashastis’ were written documents about kings penned down by educated
Brahmanas.
● They contain detailed information regarding how a king functioned and
controlled his empire.
● As per historians, whatever is written in ‘Prashastis’ is not always true.
● They contain things written from the perception of the kings. In other words,
‘Prashastis’ only let us know how the king wished to portray himself; for
instance, as courageous and victorious.

15.Why was the Kalhana famous?

Ans. Kalhana was a Sanskrit writer of the twentieth century. He became famous
mainly due to composing a long Sanskrit poem that narrates the detailed history of
the rulers of Kashmir.

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To compose the poem, he dug out information from real sources including
inscriptions, accounts of eyewitnesses, historical documents, etc. His composition
received a lot of attention and is considered significant because unlike Prashastis he
did not depict emperors the way wanted to be; instead, in the poem, he put forward
his perception and critically analyzed the rulers, and their policies.

Long Answer Questions: 5 Marks

16.Why did the conquerors destroy the temples in the first
place?
Ans. Temples were built by the rulers in their empires to showcase the power and
wealth they possessed. When the empire was attacked by conquerors, they used to
destroy the temples in the first place because of the following reasons—
● The rulers used to construct the temples by investing a lot of valuable resources
like gold. Hence, temples served as a significant source for conquerors for
looting highly prized resources.
● For instance, a ruler of Ghazni, Afghanistan named Sultan Mahmud attacked
the Somnath temple of Gujarat and plundered a lot of its valuable wealth.
● Temples signified the strength and power a ruler possessed. So, its destruction
by conquerors used to mean the ruler lost his power.
● Moreover, as temples symbolized power, many conquerors used to destroy
those at the first place to exhibit their win and access over a kingdom.

17.During the Chola kingdom, what was the role of temples?

Ans. During the reign of the Chola kingdom, temples were not just meant for praying
and worshipping gods. They also became active centres of social, cultural, and
economic activities. Their role during that period has been described in the following
points—
● The temples often became central points or nuclei surrounding which
settlements used to grow.

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● They were also the centers of craft manufacture. Crafts produced here used to
be exported in other regions and in this way the temple areas became major
centres of trades as well.
● Moreover, the temples had agriculturally productive lands around them. The
produce of these lands was looked after and taken care of by temple workers
like priests, cooks, garland makers, musicians, and so on.
To serve these purposes, many temples were built by rulers of the Chola empire.
Significant examples include the Thanjavur temple constructed by Rajaraja and the
Gangaikondacholapuram temple built by the ruler named Rajendra.

18.How were the committee members of the Sabha elected?

Ans. A sabha was comprised of many committees. Each of these committees had a
certain number of members who were used to be selected by a selection process.
This process can be described as follows—
● Firstly, the names of all the eligible candidates were penned down on tickets of
palm leaf.
● Then these tickets were transferred to an earthenware pot.
● A young boy was called and his task was to pick up the tickets one by one. The
names which he used to pick up were selected as members of a committee.
In this way, members of all the committees used to get selected.

19.Discuss the life of Mahmud of Ghazni.

Ans. The life of Ghazni's Sultan Mahmud is as follows—
● As a ruler: Sultan Mahmud was a well-known and ambitious ruler of Ghazni,
Afghanistan. His reign continued from 997 to 1030 .
● As a conqueror: He aimed to extend his dominance over parts of Central Asia,
Iran, and the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent. To fulfil his
objective, he attacked the Indian subcontinent almost every year. He used to
target resourceful temples and used to loot a lot of valuable possessions. One
such significant temple raided by him was the Somnath temple located in the
state of Gujarat.

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● Curiosity about conquered people: Sultan Mahmud had an interest in knowing
about the life and culture of the people of areas he conquered. For this purpose,
he recruited an Arab scholar named Al-Biruni and asked him to write about the
Indian subcontinent. Al-Biruni’s composition Kitab-ul-Hind is still a major
source for historians to dig out valuable information.

20.How did Cholas come to power?

Ans. To understand Cholas’ rise to power, we have to go a little back through the
pages of history—
● Initially, the Kaveri delta region of South India was under the power of a minor
chiefly family, Muttaraiyar. They were the ‘samantas ’of the kings of the
Pallava dynasty.
● However, in the middle of the ninth century, their power over the Kaveri delta
got diminished when Vijayalaya belonging to another chiefly family named
Cholas conquered the region and overpowered them.
● Soon Vijayalaya started showcasing the power of Cholas by constructing a town
named Thanjavur and a temple for goddess Nishumbhasudini in that town.
● After Vijayalaya’s reign, when his successors came into power, they extended
the territory of the Cholas into regions like the Pandyan and the Pallava.
● Rajaraja I was considered the most powerful of Chola kings. His reign not only
witnessed territorial expansion but also saw a reorganization of the kingdom’s
administration system.
● His son Rajendra I was no less. He continued the policies his father introduced
and conquered many other regions including Ganga valley, Sri Lanka and some
South-east Asian countries.

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