Question : Buddha’s teachings to a large extent could be helpful in understanding and resolving the problems of today’s society. Analyse critically.
(2014)
Answer : What role has Buddhism to play in understanding and resolving current problems in today’s society is something that needs some careful analysis.
Today’s society itself is very difficult to define. One might say that modem life is characterized by the fact that the world is getting smaller; that people are having greater access to each other; that communication barriers are fast disappearing; that it is possible for one to know what happens everywhere in the world ....
Question : What were the privileges granted to the donees in land-grant charters of early India? How far were these charters responsible for integration or disintegration socio-political milieu?
(2014)
Answer : Early India marks the growth of cultivation and organisation of land relations through grants. These grants began in the early Christian era and covered practically the entire subcontinent till the 12th century.
Cultivation was extended not only to hitherto virgin lands but even by clearing forest area.
But land grants were also made in areas of settled agriculture as well as other ecological zones, especially for integrating them into a new economic order. The number of land ....
Question : Write what you know of the rise and spread of Buddhism before the first century A.D.
(2007)
Answer : Numerous religious sects arose in the middle Gangatic plains in the sixth century BC. We hear of as many as 62 religious sects. Of these sects Jainism and Buddhism were the most important and they emerged as the most potent religious reform movement. Gautama Buddha or Siddhartha was born in 563 BC in a Shakya Kshatriya family in Kapilavastu, which is situated in the foothills of Nepal.
Like Mahvira, Gautama also belongs to a noble family. ....
Question : Explain the social aspects of Buddhism and account for its decline in India.
(2004)
Answer : Social aspects of Buddhism involve many different kinds of action intended to benefit mankind. These range from simple individual acts of charity, teaching and training, organized kinds of service, “Right Livelihood” in and outside the helping professions, and through various kinds of community development as well as to political activity in working for a better society. Buddhism is a pragmatic teaching which starts from certain fundamental propositions about how we experience the world and how ....
Question : “The Sixth century BC was a period of religious and economic unrest in India” Comment.
(2003)
Answer : The C 600 BC saw the religious and economic reform movement in the Gangetic basin. Numerous religious sects arose in this area in Sixth Century BC. We hear of as many as 62 religious sects. Many of these sects were based on regional customs and rituals practised by different people. These changes were due to the steady growth of social discrimination and economic transformation. The causes which gave rise to religious reform movement and economic ....
Question : Social and Economic conditions of North India during the Pre-Mauryan period (600- 325 B.C.).
(1996)
Answer : North Indian society and economy experienced a process of transition during the Pre-Mauryan period. The old view of regarding the non-Aryans as devils and demons was given up and a way was found to absorb any number of them into the Aryan fold without the Aryans destroying their own identity. The structural device used by the Aryans for absorbing non-Aryans was the caste system.
The changes that came in the economic life of people brought ....
Question : Essence of Early Jainism.
(1995)
Answer : Jaina ideas were in circulation in the seventh century. Their first Tirthankara was Rishabhadeva and the twenty third Tirthankara was Parshvanath, the son of King Ashvasena of Benaras, and according to Prof. Jacobi, he was “the real founder of the Jain religion”. But it was the teacher Mahavira who gave shape to them in the sixth century, and his teaching led to the rapid spread and organization of the Jaina sect. Jaina teaching was at ....
