UPHESC Assistant Professor History 2025 PYQs

Concept: Ramtanu Pandey received the title ‘Tansen’ from Raja Vikramajit (Vikramaditya) of Gwalior; Akbar gave him the title ‘Mian’.

1. He was a master of dhrupad (B true).
2. He created ragas like Miyan ki Malhar, Miyan ki Todi, Darbari Kanada (C true).
3. His tomb is at Gwalior near Muhammad Ghaus’s tomb (D true).

Short trick: Tansen ← Gwalior raja; ‘Mian’ ← Akbar.

Concept: Shah Jahan founded the madrasa Dar-ul-Baqa (‘abode of eternity’) near the Jama Masjid of Shahjahanabad (Delhi).

1. Firoz Tughluq’s famous college was the Madrasa-i-Firozshahi at Hauz Khas.
2. Iltutmish’s madrasa was the Muizzi madrasa; Abul Fazl was a scholar, not a founder of this institution.

Short trick: Shahjahanabad + Jama Masjid + Dar-ul-Baqa = Shah Jahan.

Concept: Abu Talib Kalim of Hamadan was Shah Jahan’s Malik-ush-Shu‘ara (poet laureate) and wrote the verse chronicle Padshahnama.

1. Haji Muhammad Jan Qudsi was also a court poet of Shah Jahan, but the laureate title went to Kalim.
2. Akbar’s laureates: Ghazali Mashhadi, then Faizi.

Short trick: Shah Jahan – Kalim; Akbar – Faizi.

Concept: Zeb-un-Nissa, eldest daughter of Aurangzeb, wrote Persian poetry under the pen-name (takhallus) Makhfi (‘the hidden one’); her verses are collected in Diwan-i-Makhfi.

1. Jahanara wrote Munis-ul-Arwah (on Muinuddin Chishti) in prose.
2. Mariam-uz-Zamani was Jahangir’s mother.

Short trick: Makhfi = hidden → the poet-princess who wrote from behind the veil, Zeb-un-Nissa.

Concept: In Persian, banna means a builder or mason; its plural banna’an/bannayan was used in medieval records for masons.

1. Building works of the Sultans and Mughals list bannayan (masons), sang-tarash (stone-cutters), najjar (carpenters) etc.
2. Goldsmith = zargar; astrologer = munajjim/jotshi.

Short trick: Banna → bina (building) → mason.

Concept: Shaikh Akhi Sirajuddin Usman, a disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya, carried the Chishti order to Bengal (Gaur/Pandua).

1. His disciple Shaikh Alaul Haq and then Nur Qutb-i-Alam strengthened it at Pandua.
2. Hamiduddin Nagauri – Nagaur (Rajasthan); Qutbuddin Munawwar – Hansi (Punjab).

Short trick: Akhi Siraj – ‘Aina-i-Hind’ – Chishti lamp of Bengal.

Concept: Kumaravyasa (Naranappa, 15th c.) wrote the Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari, the popular Kannada Mahabharata (‘Gadugina Bharata’).

1. Kamban wrote the Tamil Ramayana (Ramavataram).
2. Basava was the 12th-century Virashaiva reformer (vachanas).

Short trick: Kumara-Vyasa = ‘young Vyasa’ – Kannada Mahabharata.

Concept: Mawas (or mawasat) were the defiant, rebellious tracts and villages that refused revenue; the Sultans led punitive plundering raids against them.

1. Barani and Ibn Battuta describe expeditions against mawas villages in the Doab and Katehar.
2. Hence ‘mawas’ is linked to raids on rebellious villages, not a tax, coin or officer.

Short trick: Mawas = rebel refuge → punitive raid.

Concept: Abdur Razzaq (1443) wrote that Vijayanagara’s coins – varaha (pagoda/hun), pratapa (half varaha) and fanam – were of gold.

1. He added that the tar was silver (1/6 fanam) and the jital copper.
2. Varaha carried the boar emblem; pratapa = ½ varaha; fanam = 1/10 pratapa.

Short trick: Varaha–Pratapa–Fanam = gold; Tar = silver; Jital = copper.

Concept: The Nonias (from non/lon = salt) were the caste that extracted saltpetre (shora) and salt from saline earth in Bihar–Bengal.

1. Saltpetre from Bihar/Bengal was a major export of the Dutch and English companies (for gunpowder) in the 17th–18th c.
2. The English and Dutch advanced money to Nonia workers through contractors.

Short trick: Non = salt → Nonia = saltpetre/salt maker.

Concept: The Adali (‘Adal’) was the silver coin introduced by Muhammad bin Tughluq weighing about 140 grains (against the 175-grain tanka).

1. He issued a heavy gold dinar of 200 grains and the lighter silver adali of 140 grains to adjust the gold–silver ratio.
2. None of the printed weights (10, 15, 8 or 12 grains) matches 140 grains, so no option is correct as printed.

Short trick: Muhammad Tughluq: gold dinar 200 gr, silver adali 140 gr.

Concept: Guru Angad Dev (2nd Guru, 1539–52) standardised the Gurmukhi script for writing Punjabi and the Gurus’ hymns.

1. Guru Ram Das founded Amritsar; Guru Arjan compiled the Adi Granth (1604); Guru Hargobind built the Akal Takht and militarised the Panth.

Short trick: A for Angad, A for Alphabet (Gurmukhi).

Concept: Janakiparinaya, a Sanskrit mahakavya on the marriage of Sita, was composed by Chakrakavi (17th century).

1. Jagannatha Panditaraja (Shah Jahan’s court) wrote Rasagangadhara, Gangalahari.
2. Nabhadas wrote Bhaktamal in Braj, not Sanskrit.

Short trick: Janaki-parinaya ↔ Chakra-kavi; Rasagangadhara ↔ Jagannatha.

Concept: François Bernier, the French physician (1656–68), described Benares as ‘the Athens of India’ because of its many schools of Hindu learning.

1. He noted pandits teaching students in their houses and gardens.
2. Tavernier described Benares temples but the phrase is Bernier’s.

Short trick: Bernier – Benares – Athens (all with ‘B/A’ learning).

Concept: The Ranakpur (Ranpur) Jain temple inscription of 1439 CE belongs to the reign of Rana Kumbha of Mewar, under whose patronage Dharna Shah built the Chaumukha temple.

1. It gives the genealogy of the Guhila/Sisodia rulers of Mewar.
2. Ranakpur itself is named after Rana Kumbha.

Short trick: Ranakpur = Rana (Kumbha) + pur, 1439.

Concept: In 1632 Qasim Khan Juvaini, Shah Jahan’s governor of Bengal, besieged and captured Hugli, expelling the Portuguese for slave-raiding and piracy.

1. Thousands of Portuguese were taken captive to Agra.
2. Shaista Khan later (1666) took Chittagong from the Arakanese and Portuguese pirates.

Short trick: Hugli 1632 – Qasim Khan; Chittagong 1666 – Shaista Khan.

Concept: Put the dates in order.

1. IV – Calcutta Madrasa, Warren Hastings: 1781.
2. II – Sanskrit College, Benares, Jonathan Duncan: 1791.
3. III – Macaulay’s Minute: 1835.
4. I – Wood’s Despatch: 1854.

Short trick: Orientalist institutions first (1781, 1791), then Anglicist Minute (1835), then Wood (1854) – ‘Magna Carta’ of education.

Concept: The Charter Act of 1853 ended the Directors’ patronage and threw the Indian Civil Service open to competitive examination (first held 1855, Macaulay Committee).

1. The 1833 Act had proposed open competition but it was not implemented.
2. Satyendranath Tagore (1863) was the first Indian to qualify.

Short trick: 1853 – patronage out, competition in.

Concept: The younger Sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh – Zorawar Singh (9) and Fateh Singh (6) – were sentenced by Wazir Khan, faujdar of Sirhind, and bricked alive in December 1704 (commemorated on 26–27 December).

1. Statement I is therefore true.
2. The great plague of the Deccan struck the Mughal army in the 1680s–90s (Bijapur, 1688–89); no plague is recorded as reaching the Deccan on 27 December 1704 – Statement II is false.

Short trick: Shaheedi Jor Mela at Fatehgarh Sahib = 27 December.

Concept: François Martin founded the French settlement of Pondicherry in 1674 on land obtained from the Bijapur governor Sher Khan Lodi.

1. Earlier French factory: Surat (1668, Caron); Masulipatam (1669).
2. Pedro Alvares Cabral was a Portuguese navigator (1500).

Short trick: 1674 – Martin – Pondicherry.