List the items of food available to people in Harappan cities. Identify the groups who would have provided these.

Discuss whether the Mahabharata could have been the work of a single author.

How do historians reconstruct the lives of ordinary people?

Discuss whether kings in early states were invariably Kshatriyas.

How important were gender differences in early societies? Give reasons for your answer.

Look at Fig. 1.30 and describe what you see. How is the body placed? What are the objects placed near it? Are there any artefacts on the body? Do these indicate the sex of the skeleton?

On Map 1, use a pencil to circle sites where evidence of agriculture has been recovered. Mark an X against sites where there is evidence of craft production and R against sites where raw materials were found.

Discuss the evidence that suggests that Brahmanical prescriptions about kinship and marriage were not universally followed.

Describe some of the distinctive features of Mohenjodaro.

Describe the salient features of mahajanapadas.

Were the ideas of the Upanishadic thinkers different from those of the fatalists and materialists? Give reasons for your answer.

Discuss whether the Mahabharata could have been the work of a single author.

List the raw materials required for craft production in the Harappan civilisation and discuss how these might have been obtained.

Discuss the main features of Mauryan administration. Which of these elements are evident in the Asokan inscriptions that you have studied?

Discuss the role of the begums of Bhopal in preserving the stupa at Sanchi.

Look at Fig. 1.30 and describe what you see. How is the body placed? What are the objects placed near it? Are there any artefacts on the body? Do these indicate the sex of the skeleton?

Discuss the evidence of craft production in Early Historic cities. In what ways is this different from the evidence from Harappan cities?

Discuss the functions that may have been performed by rulers in Harappan society.

To what extent were agricultural practices transformed in the period under consideration?

Read this short inscription and answer:

In the year 33 of the maharaja Huvishka (a Kushana ruler), in the first month of the hot season on the eighth day, a Bodhisatta was set up at Madhuvanaka by the bhikkhuni Dhanavati, the sister’s daughter of the bhikkhuni Buddhamita, who knows the Tipitaka, the female pupil of the bhikkhu Bala, who knows the Tipitaka, together with her father and mother.

(a) How did Dhanavati date her inscription?
(b) Why do you think she installed an image of the Bodhisatta?
(c) Who were the relatives she mentioned?
(d) What Buddhist text did she know?
(e) From whom did she learn this text?

Discuss the evidence that suggests that Brahmanical prescriptions about kinship and marriage were not universally followed.