EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 25 of 120

Correct — B, (b) Harmika : A style of temple architecture that originated under the Chola Kings — that is the pair which is not correctly matched. A harmika is not a style of temple architecture and has nothing to do with the Cholas: it is a specific component of a Buddhist stupa. On top of the hemispherical dome, the anda, sits a small square enclosure formed by a stone railing — that is the harmika — and it surrounds the foot of the mast, the yashti, which rises through it and carries the tiered umbrellas, the chhatras. The whole assembly represents the abode of the gods at the summit of the world mountain and marks the sanctified point above the relic chamber; it is visible at the Great Stupa at Sanchi, where the harmika crowns the dome above the circumambulatory path. The word therefore belongs to the vocabulary of Buddhist funerary architecture of the centuries either side of the turn of the era, not to Dravida temple building of the ninth to thirteenth centuries. The description attached to it in the option is a fabricated gloss, and it is a doubly baited one, because the Chola period genuinely is the age in which Dravida temple architecture reached its most monumental form at Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram — so a candidate who recognises 'Chola' as an architecturally serious word may accept the pair without checking the term it is attached to. The item's ask is negative, printed with the 'not' in bold italic, and the other three pairs are all correctly matched, so (b) is the answer. Note the format as well: this is a pair-matching item in which each option is one pair joined by a printed colon under the headings (Ancient Text/Term) and (Meaning), not a List I and List II item with a code grid to choose from.

• (a)Samarangana-Sutradhara : A scientific work on ancient Indian architecture — Correctly matched, so it cannot be the answer. The Samarangana-Sutradhara is a Sanskrit treatise on architecture attributed to the Paramara king Bhoja of Dhara in Malwa, of the eleventh century, and it deals systematically with the siting of settlements, the planning of houses and palaces, temple types, image-making and the proportions to be used, with a well-known section on mechanical contrivances. Calling it a scientific work on ancient Indian architecture is an accurate description of a vastu-shastra text of this kind. The booklet prints the title in italics, which is the clue that it is a work and not a technical term, and a candidate looking for the false pair should not be detained by the fact that the title is unfamiliar.
• (c)Vimana : A striking feature of the Dravidian style of temples — Correctly matched. The vimana is the tower raised over the garbhagriha of a southern temple — a pyramid of clearly marked receding storeys, each ringed with miniature shrines, capped by a small octagonal or domed cupola and a finial — and it is the single feature by which the Dravida style is recognised, standing against the curvilinear shikhara of the Nagara north. The Brihadeshvara at Thanjavur, whose vimana rises above sixty metres, is the standard illustration. Because the option's gloss is exactly the textbook description, treating it as the odd one out would mean rejecting the most secure pair in the set.
• (d)Kutagarashala : A hut with a pointed roof where travelling mendicants halted — Correctly matched, and the gloss is close to the words in which the standard school account explains the term: a kutagarashala is literally a hut with a pointed roof, one of the places where wandering mendicants and teachers of the sixth century BCE halted, debated and taught, the other being groves on the edges of settlements. The term belongs to the early Buddhist and Jaina milieu of the mahajanapada period rather than to architecture in the monumental sense, which is what makes it feel out of place beside vimana and harmika — but feeling out of place is not being wrongly matched, and the definition given is right.

The vocabulary of Indian religious architecture divides cleanly by tradition, and most questions of this kind are solved by first asking which tradition a term belongs to. Stupa terms: the vedika is the railing enclosing the circumambulatory path, the torana the carved gateway through it, the medhi the drum or terrace, the anda the hemispherical dome, the harmika the small square railed enclosure on top of the dome, the yashti the mast rising from it, and the chhatra the tiered umbrella at its head. Temple terms: the garbhagriha is the sanctum, the mandapa the pillared hall before it, the shikhara the curvilinear tower of the Nagara north, the vimana the storeyed pyramidal tower of the Dravida south, the amalaka and kalasha the finials of a northern tower, and the gopura the gateway tower of a southern enclosure. Textual terms: vastu-shastra works such as the Samarangana-Sutradhara of Bhoja and the Mayamata and Manasara of the southern tradition set out siting, proportion and iconography, and are examined as the written counterpart of the buildings. Sort a term into one of these three families and a mismatched gloss usually announces itself, because the gloss will belong to a different family from the term.

The Commission uses two different matching formats and they are not interchangeable. One is the List I and List II item with a code grid, of which this booklet prints exactly one, at Q67. The other is the shape used here and again at Q63: each option is itself a single pair, printed under the column headings (Ancient Text/Term) and (Meaning) with a colon between the two halves, and the ask is which pair is wrong. The difference matters for technique. In a code-grid item you can eliminate whole options using one certain pair, because the options are rival permutations. Here the options are independent claims, so no elimination cascade is available: you must judge four separate pairs and find the single false one, which means you cannot answer the question from partial knowledge in the same way. What you can do is work by family, as above, and mark the pair whose two halves come from different worlds — a stupa component glossed as a temple style, in this case. The ask is negative and printed with the 'not' in bold italic; three of these pairs are true, and the instinct to mark the term you have never seen must be resisted, since an unfamiliar term correctly defined is still a correct pair.

• The harmika is the small square railed enclosure on top of the anda, the hemispherical dome of a Buddhist stupa; the yashti or mast rises through it carrying the tiered chhatras, and the arrangement can be seen at the Great Stupa at Sanchi. It belongs to stupa architecture, not to temple architecture, and has no connection with the Cholas.
• The Samarangana-Sutradhara is an eleventh-century Sanskrit vastu-shastra attributed to the Paramara king Bhoja of Dhara in Malwa, covering the siting of settlements, house and palace planning, temple types, image-making and proportion, with a section on mechanical devices.
• The vimana is the storeyed pyramidal tower over the sanctum of a southern temple and is the diagnostic feature of the Dravida style, as against the curvilinear shikhara with amalaka and kalasha that marks the Nagara north; the Brihadeshvara at Thanjavur carries the best-known example.
• A kutagarashala is literally a hut with a pointed roof, one of the places where wandering mendicants of the sixth century BCE halted and debated, the other being groves outside settlements; the term belongs to the early Buddhist and Jaina milieu rather than to monumental architecture.
• This booklet prints one List I and List II matching item with a code grid, at Q67, and two pair-matching items of the present shape, at Q25 and Q63, in which each option is a single pair and the ask is which pair is not correctly matched.

• Accepting a pair because one half of it sounds authoritative; 'a style that originated under the Chola kings' is a real-sounding gloss attached here to a stupa component, and the Chola age genuinely is the great age of Dravida building, which is what makes the bait work
• Treating this as a List I and List II item and looking for a code grid; each option here is a single independent pair, so the elimination cascade that solves grid items is not available and all four pairs must be judged
• Marking the unfamiliar term as the mismatch — the Samarangana-Sutradhara is the least familiar entry in the set and it is correctly glossed, while the mismatch is attached to a term most candidates have met
• Missing the bold italic 'not': the item asks which pair is wrong, and a candidate who reads it as 'which is correctly matched' will find three defensible answers and no way to choose between them

Terminology reaches this paper as pair-matching items far more often than as definition questions, and the pool is drawn from stupa components, temple components and the names of architectural or scientific treatises. The mismatch is manufactured in one of two ways: a term is glossed with the meaning of a neighbouring term from the same family, or, as here, it is glossed with something from an entirely different family and dressed up with a dynasty or a period to make it plausible. Revise by family rather than alphabetically, and rehearse each term with a one-line definition, because that one line is exactly what the second column of such an item prints.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the architecture of a Buddhist stupa, the mast that rises from the harmika and carries the tiered umbrellas is known as the

  • (a)yashti
  • (b)vedika
  • (c)medhi
  • (d)torana

  Answer(a) yashti — the mast rising through the square railed harmika on top of the dome, carrying the chhatras or tiered umbrellas above the relic chamber. The vedika is the railing enclosing the circumambulatory path around the stupa, the medhi is the drum or terrace on which the dome rests, and the torana is the carved gateway set into the vedika, of which the four at Sanchi are the most famous.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sanskrit treatise Samarangana-Sutradhara, which deals with the siting of settlements, house and temple architecture and image-making, is attributed to which one of the following rulers?

  • (a)Krishna I of the Rashtrakutas
  • (b)Bhoja of the Paramaras
  • (c)Rajaraja I of the Cholas
  • (d)Harshavardhana of Kanauj

  Answer(b) Bhoja of the Paramaras — the eleventh-century Paramara king of Dhara in Malwa, remembered as a patron and author to whom several Sanskrit works are attributed, of which the Samarangana-Sutradhara is the architectural one. Krishna I is remembered for the Kailashanatha at Ellora, Rajaraja I for the Brihadeshvara at Thanjavur, and Harshavardhana for his own plays and for the patronage of Banabhatta.