Jainism & Buddhism MCQs for UPSC Prelims

Correct answer: C - 3 and 4 only

The Buddha spent most of his life teaching in the eastern Gangetic plains. Kosala, with its capital Shravasti where he passed many rainy seasons, and Magadha, where he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya and was patronised by King Bimbisara, were directly associated with his life, so statements 3 and 4 are correct. Avanti and Gandhara lay outside this core region and are not linked to his life, so statements 1 and 2 are wrong. Hence 3 and 4 only.

Correct answer: B - 2 and 3 only

At the Second Buddhist Council the Sangha split into the Sthaviravadins (Elders) and the Mahasanghikas; the Sthaviravada tradition is the orthodox line associated with Theravada, not Mahayana, so statement 1 is wrong. The Lokottaravadins were indeed a sub-sect that branched off from the Mahasanghikas and held that the Buddha was a transcendent (lokottara) being, so statement 2 is correct. This Mahasanghika tendency to deify the Buddha and treat him as superhuman prepared the doctrinal ground for Mahayana Buddhism, making statement 3 correct too. The answer is 2 and 3 only.

Correct answer: B - 2 and 3 only

Shakyamuni, meaning the sage of the Shakya clan, and Tathagata, meaning one who has thus gone or thus come, are both well-known epithets of Gautama Buddha used in Buddhist texts. Nayaputta or Nigantha Nataputta is the epithet by which Mahavira, the 24th Jaina Tirthankara, is referred to in Buddhist and Jaina literature, since he belonged to the Jnatrika clan. Including Nayaputta would wrongly attribute a Jaina epithet to the Buddha, so the correct combination is 2 and 3 only.

Correct answer: B - 2 and 4 only

Parishishtaparvan is Hemachandra's twelfth century Jaina work giving lives of the earliest Jaina teachers, and the Trishashtilakshana Mahapurana, begun by Jinasena and completed by Gunabhadra, is a major Digambara Jaina purana, so items 2 and 4 are Jaina. Nettipakarana is a Pali Buddhist treatise on textual interpretation, and Avadanashataka is a Sanskrit Buddhist collection of one hundred avadana legends, so items 1 and 3 are Buddhist, not Jaina. This required fairly obscure textual knowledge, making it a hard question. The correct combination is 2 and 4 only.

Correct answer: C - Only two pairs

Aryadeva was a Mahayana Buddhist philosopher, the celebrated disciple of Nagarjuna in the Madhyamaka school, so calling him a Jaina scholar is wrong. Dignaga was indeed a Buddhist logician who founded the school of Buddhist epistemology, so the second pair is correct. Nathamuni was the Vaishnava acharya of Srirangam who compiled the Nalayira Divya Prabandham of the Alvars, so the third pair is correct. With pairs 2 and 3 right and pair 1 wrong, only two pairs are correctly matched.

Correct answer: D - 1, 2 and 3

All three are defining features of Mahayana Buddhism. The Mahayana school treated the Buddha as a divine being worthy of devotion rather than merely an enlightened teacher, which is the deification mentioned in statement 1. It upheld the Bodhisattva ideal, where one defers personal nirvana to work for the salvation of all beings, covering statement 2. Mahayana also embraced image worship, elaborate rituals and devotional practice, unlike early Buddhism which used symbols rather than images, validating statement 3. Hence 1, 2 and 3 are all correct.

Correct answer: B - 2 only

Statement 1 is wrong: Sautrantika and Sammitiya were schools of Buddhism, not sects of Jainism. Statement 2 is correct: the Sarvastivadin school held that the constituents (dharmas) of phenomena are not wholly momentary but exist perpetually in a latent form across the three times. Therefore only statement 2 is correct.

Correct answer: C - Sarvastivada Vinaya

Sanghabhuti, who worked in China in the late fourth century AD, is associated with translating and commenting on the Vinaya, the monastic discipline texts, of the Sarvastivada school. The Prajnaparamita Sutras are Mahayana wisdom texts linked to translators like Kumarajiva, the Visuddhimagga is a Theravada compendium by Buddhaghosha composed in Sri Lanka, and the Lalitavistara is a Sanskrit biography of the Buddha; none of these is connected with Sanghabhuti. This was an obscure factual question that few aspirants could answer directly.