One of the most important descriptions of the city of Vijayanagara in the fifteenth century came from

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Al Biruni arrived in Ghazni as a hostage of Sultan Mahmud from Morocco. b. He was well versed in several languages such as Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Sanskrit. c. Al Biruni translated Patanjali's work on grammar from Sanskrit to Arabic and Euclid's works from Greek to Sanskrit.

Which of the following travellers arrived in Delhi in 1333 in the court of Muhammad bin Tughlaq after being lured by his reputation as a generous patron of arts and letters?

a. Al-Biruni b. Abdur Razzaq Samarquandi c. Ibn Battuta

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Ibn Battuta travelled extensively in China, going as far as Beijing, but did not stay in China for long. b. From China, he went to Sumatra, where he stayed for eighteen months. c. He was appointed the qazi or judge of Sumatra for the duration of his stay there.

Which of the following plants were completely unfamiliar to Ibn Battuta and his audience?

a. Date palms b. Betel leaves c. Coconuts

Which of the following European travellers never returned to Europe and settled down in India?

a. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier b. Manucci c. François Bernier

Which of the following travellers called the Mughal king "the king of beggars and barbarians”?

Which of the following were the barriers that Al Biruni felt obstructed the understanding of the culture that he observed in the Indian subcontinent as compared to practices with which travellers were familiar?

a. Language b. The difference in religious beliefs and practices c. The insularity of the local population d. The caste system

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Ibn Battuta described Daulatabad (in Maharashtra) as a vast, large city that easily rivalled Delhi in size. b. He said that the ramparts around the city were unparalleled. c. He describes a market in Daulatabad by the name of Tarababad, which was the marketplace for male and female singers.

Which of the following statements is/are correct about the perception of the Indian continent according to Bernier's accounts?

a. He thought that one of the fundamental differences between Mughal India and Europe was the lack of private property in land in the former. b. He was a firm believer in the virtues of private property and saw crown ownership of land as being harmful for both the state and its people. c. He thought that the landholders were averse to any long-term investment in the sustenance and expansion of production because they could not pass it on to their children.

Which of the following historians is perhaps the only one to provide a detailed account of the imperial karkhanas or workshops?

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Ibn Battuta bought horses, camels and slaves from Sind as gifts for Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq. b. Muhammad bin Tughlaq was so happy with the gifts of Ibn Battuta that he gave him a hundred thousand tankas (coins) and two hundred slaves. c. Ibn Battuta presented the governor of Sind a slave and a horse together with raisins and almonds.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Al Biruni described Sanskrit as an easy language to master for someone who has learned Persian and Arabic. b. He remarked that Sanskrit was a language of an enormous range, both in words and inflections, something like Arabic. c. Al Biruni's works were circulted as manuscripts till the seventeenth century when they were finally published in 1670-71 and translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within the next five years.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. Jesuit Roberto Nobili translated Indian texts into European languages. b. Duarte Barbosa wrote a detailed account of trade and society in south India. c. French jeweller François Bernier travelled to India at least six times and was particularly fascinated with the trading conditions in India.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

a. François Bernier dedicated his major writing to Louis XIV, the king of France. b. Many of his other works were written in the form of letters to his beloved daughters. c. He often travelled with the army.