Consider the following statements about the use of stirrup in India: 1. The Konarak horse sculpture (c. 1250) shows a ring-stirrup. 2. A broad, probably wooden, stirrup appears in Khajuraho sculptures (probably 10th century). 3. The iron-stirrup was used in the Delhi Sultans' armies from the thirteenth century onwards. How many of the above statements is/are correct?

Correct — C, 3. All three statements are accepted in the standard account, which for this topic is Irfan Habib's survey of the evidence for the stirrup in India. The argument runs through sculpture, because that is nearly all the evidence there is. Khajuraho's tenth-century horse figures are read as showing a broad stirrup, probably of wood; the Konarak horse of about 1250 shows a ring-stirrup, a loop for the foot rather than a flat tread; and the iron stirrup proper is associated with the Turkish cavalry of the Delhi Sultanate from the thirteenth century. The sequence matters more than the individual dates: a foot support of some kind is old in India — a big-toe loop was in use late in the second century BCE, and horsemen at Sanchi, Mathura and the Bhaja caves are shown with the toes slipped under a girth — but the true iron stirrup, the one that lets an armoured rider brace against impact, arrives with the Central Asian cavalry tradition. One honest caveat: the Konarak and Khajuraho readings rest on Habib's interpretation of the carvings, and this card does not certify them beyond that. Statement 3 is on much firmer ground.

• (a)1 — Undercounts. All three statements are accepted in the standard account; none of the three is the kind of claim the paper plants as false.
• (b)2 — The tempting middle answer, on the assumption that one of the two sculptural datings must be wrong. Both are accepted, and statement 3 is independently secure.
• (d)Nil — Would require the iron stirrup to be absent from the Delhi Sultanate's cavalry, which is the best-attested of the three claims.

The stirrup changes what a horseman can do. A rider braced in stirrups is less likely to be thrown while fighting and can put the weight and momentum of horse and rider behind a blow. India has an unusually long and mixed history here: a soft foot support — a loop for the big toe — was in use by the late second century BCE, and early carvings show riders with toes slipped under a girth. That is not the same object as the iron stirrup with a flat tread, which spread from Central Asia and reached India in force with Turkish cavalry armies.

Questions from this block are drawn from the history of technology, and they reward reading the statements as a sequence rather than as three isolated facts: wooden or broad stirrup in the tenth century, ring-stirrup by the mid-thirteenth, iron stirrup with the Sultanate armies from the thirteenth. Told that way, nothing in the list contradicts anything else, which is the strongest signal that the count is three. It is worth knowing that the wider claim about stirrups is genuinely disputed among historians — the 'Great Stirrup Controversy' turns on whether the stirrup, rather than the high-cantled saddle, is what made the couched-lance charge possible, and cataphracts used lances long before stirrups existed. Indian textbooks follow the traditional view. CDS itself keyed both halves of that traditional view as correct in 2022, so for exam purposes the standard account is what is being tested.

• A big-toe loop was in use as a foot support in India late in the second century BCE, and possibly as early as 500 BCE.
• Carvings at Sanchi, Mathura and the Bhaja caves, of the first to second centuries BCE, show horsemen with elaborate saddles and toes slipped under girths.
• The stirrup lets a rider stay seated while fighting and deliver a blow using the weight and momentum of horse and rider together.
• The iron stirrup is associated in India with the Turkish cavalry of the Delhi Sultanate from the thirteenth century onwards.
• Whether the stirrup or the cantled saddle made the couched-lance charge possible is disputed — the 'Great Stirrup Controversy'; cataphracts used lances long before stirrups.

• Treating the early Indian toe-loop as the same object as the iron stirrup — they are different technologies centuries apart.
• Assuming a 'how many are correct' item must have a false statement planted in it; sometimes all of them hold.
• Carrying the historiographical dispute over the couched lance into an exam answer — CDS keys the traditional account.

As a counting item over sculptural and military evidence, as here, or as a single-statement item on what the iron stirrup made possible. The Sultanate cavalry connection is the part most often asked.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The earliest form of hard foot support for a rider attested in India was

  • (a)an iron stirrup with a flat tread
  • (b)a loop for the big toe
  • (c)a wooden platform stirrup
  • (d)a leather ring hung from the saddle horn

  Answer(b) a loop for the big toe — in use in India late in the second century BCE, and possibly as early as 500 BCE, long before the iron stirrup.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The iron stirrup is associated in India chiefly with the cavalry of

  • (a)the Mauryan empire
  • (b)the Gupta empire
  • (c)the Delhi Sultanate
  • (d)the Satavahanas

  Answer(c) the Delhi Sultanate — the iron stirrup came in with the Turkish cavalry tradition and is used in the Sultans' armies from the thirteenth century onwards.