the mythology quiz | quizweekend '17

The Quiz Weekend ‘17Mrityunjay

Acknowledgements

This quiz is brought to you by BCQC - COEP Quiz Club.Quiz set by Akshay Parale, Aman Shaikh & Shashank Gandham.Special thanks to you all for turning up.Huge shoutout to the admin team.

Q.1.

• Shivaji Sawant was a renowned novelist in Marathi. His most famous works include Mrityunjay and Chhava. Mrityunjay is considered a milestone in the history of Marathi novels. It is based on the life of a great warrior known for his selflessness and valour. Who was this unfortunate and cursed (thrice) character who ultimately had a sad demise?

Karna

Q.2.

• The following image shows the ____, also known as the ‘Bedof Arrows’ pose, a position developed in the Iyenagartradition wherein the entire body is rested on wooden blocks which enables to create a feeling of lightness and supports the heart, making it a pose of choice for cardiac patients.

• This asana is named in honour of one of the most cherished and respected characters, whose fate has been reflected in the asana.

• Id the asana/character.

• Answer follows

• Bhishmasana ( in honour of Bhishma/Devarata)

Q.3.

•Which water body gets its name from the legend wherein it was first created in the mind of Lord Brahma and then it manifested on earth and to this day is considered sacred by Tibetans, Buddhist, Hindus, and Jains and also finds notable mentions in the respective cultures?

• Answer follows

Lake Manasarovar (Mana=mind; sarovar=lake)

• In Hinduism, Lake Manasarovar is a personification of purity, and one who drinks water from the lake will go to the abode of Shiva after death.

• Buddhists associate the lake with the legendary lake Anavatapta where Maya is believed to have conceived Buddha.

• In Jainism, Lake Manasarovar is associated with the first Tirthankara, Rishabha.

Q.4.

• In ancient Greek religion and myth, the Anemoi were wind gods who were each ascribed a direction from which their respective winds came.

• If Boreas: the north wind (cold winter)

Zephyrus: the west wind (spring and early summer)

Notos: the south wind (late summer storms and autumn)

Then what represented the east wind? ( not associated with any of the 3 Greek seasons and also doesn’t find any mention in Hesiod’s Theogeny). It did however come into public imagination due to its recent depiction in popular culture.

Eurus

Q.5.

• He is personification of creation and the abstract form of the creator God according to the Rigveda. He is the presiding deity of the eponymous caste and also all engineers, priests artisans and architects. He is believed to be the "Principal Architect of the Universe and was commissioned to build a golden palace in Lanka and also built Krishna’s Dwaraka overnight. Who is he?

Vishwakarma

( Vishwakarma Day is celebrated in the months of September or October in Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Tripura. It is observed primarily in factories and industrial areas, often on the shop floor to pray for better working conditions)

Q.6.

• Atargatis was a Syrian moon goddess. She had a child with a human. She then killed her love, abandoned her child , jumped into a lake and took the form of X. ID X.

Mermaid

Q.7.

• The Chakri dynasty is the current ruling royal house of the Kingdomof Thailand, while the Head of the house is the monarch. It was founded by Rama I and the current leader is Rama X (MahaVajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun)

• Every monarch is seen as an incarnation of gods Shiva and Vishnu.

• Appropriately enough what two objects are depicted on their emblem?

Sudarshan Chakra and Trishula

Q.8.

• After the war when Vibhishana invites Rama to live in Lanka, he says,

“ The city is amazing. But even though it is full of gold and heavenly I prefer to go to my motherland which is much better.”

• The origins of which verse can be attributed to the above event and is also the national motto of Nepal?

Q.9.

• He was present in the form of a flag on Arjuna’s chariot.

• It was due to his presence and that of Lord Krishna’s that the chariot was still standing despite many celestial weapons thrown at it during the war.

• As soon as both left the chariot it burnt into ashes.

• Who featured on the flag rendering the chariot the necessary strength?

Hanuman

Q.10.

• In one interpretation they symbolize the 6 shastras and 4 vedas, making him a great scholar and one of the most intelligent men of his time.•However, one negative interpretation states that

they represent these 10 traits namely:“Ahamkara(Ego), Moha(Attachment), Krodha(Anger), Anvaya(Injustice), Amanavta(Cruelty), Matsara(Jealousy), Lobha(Greed), Kama (Lust), Swartha(Selfishness), Mada(Over-Pride)”.

• Symbolic significance of what?

10 heads of Ravana

Q.11.

• In 2015, SolarCity began a new marketing campaign featuring ____ at home as a servant of the homeowner, inviting customers to harness the power of the sun and save. His most usual form is a man with the head of a hawk and a solar disk on top and a coiled serpent around the disk. Who?

Ra ( Egyptian Sun God)

Q.12.

• The Uttarakhand Govt, with the help of the department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Ayush) launched a hunt in mid-2016 for a mythical species that has eluded sages and scientists since ancient times.

• Several species have been proposed as possible candidates for the same, including: Selaginella bryopteris, Dendrobiumplicatile and Cressa –cretica.

• What are they trying to find with the search focused in the region of Valley of flowers and Himalayan ranges near the Chinese border?

Sanjeevani Booti

Q.13.

Connect this exhaustive list:

Epic poetry

History

Flutes and Lyric poetry

Comedy and Pastoral poetry

Tragedy

Dance

Sacred poetry

Astronomy

Love Poetry

Nine Muses

Q.14.

• It is the law of Karma which states that “the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence decides their fate in future existences and it applies to everyone.”

• What incident is supposed to have taken place at Bhalka Tirtha near Somnath Temple in Saurashtra that marked the beginning of Kali Yuga, which is dated to February 17/18, 3102 BCE(debatable) and which involved a hunter named Jara?

Demise of Krishna (Jara was the vanara king Vali in his previous birth who was killed by Rama in a similar fashion)

Q.15.

• X was the son of Kumbhakarna according to the locals here. He was feared alike by the mortals and the divine as he defeated Indra and conquered heaven.

• He also captured Kamarupeshwar, a staunch Shiva devotee and forced him to worship him rather than Shiva.

• When Kamarupeshwar denied, the tyrant raised his sword to strike the Shiva Linga. As soon as X managed to raise his sword, Lord Shiva appeared before him in all his magnificence and Shiva reduced the evil demon to ashes and thus concluded the saga of tyranny.

• All the Gods and the holy sages present there requested Lord Shiva to make this place his abode. Lord Shiva thus manifested himself in the form of a lingam. Id X (also the name of the river that originates here) /Shrine.

Bhimashankar (The demon being Bhima)

Q.16.

• Ganjifa is a card game that is associated with Persia and India. After Ganjifa cards fell out of use in Iran before the twentieth century, India became the last country to produce them.

• _____ Ganjifa is a 3 player game with 120 cards, played mainly in Sawantwadi in Maharashtra, India, although it is played by five persons in Bishnupur, West Bengal. There are 10 suits of 12 cards each; the suits correspond to the <redacted>.

• The following image shows the motifs on each suit of the cards.

• What do they represent/FITB? (Image follows)

Dashavtara

Q.17.

• In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, X was the king of the demons of the wind, known for bringing famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. X is often depicted as a combination of diverse animal and human parts. He has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, talons of an eagle, two pairs of wings, and a scorpion's tail. He has his right hand up and left hand down.

• Also, X is supposedly the evil spirit that possesses the 12 year old young girl in 1971 literary work which was again adapted into an eponymous movie in 1974. Id X ( Image follows)

Pazuzu (The novel/movie being ‘The Exorcist’)

Q.18. Born on a Friday

• This rishi was famous for having obtained the Mrityunjay (or Sanjivni) Mantra after having performed penance to Lord Shiva. He used this mantra to revive the asuras as a revenge against Vishnu for killing his mother. He played the exact opposite role of Guru Brihaspati (Preceptor of Gods).

• There is a temple dedicated to him in Kopargaon, at a dist. of 15 from Shirdi. It is claimed to be the only temple dedicated to this demon-favouring rishi. Identify him.

Daitya Guru Shukracharya

Q.19.

• According to one interpretation of the event, King Subala of the Gandhar Kingdom, was imprisoned along with his sons by his own son-in-law. He died in prison along with his sons, all but one. He instructed him (the surviving son) to cause the downfall of the entire clan of his son-in-law by creating something from his thighs.

• Who was the surviving/conniving son and what did he create from his father’s thigh bones?

Shakuni and a pair of dice

Q.20.

This installation at the Suvarnabhumi Airport depicts which famous episode from Hindu Mythology (image follows).

Samudra Manthan (Churning of the ocean)

Q.21.

• Landscape with ___ ____ __ ______(image on next slide) is a very famous painting long thought to be the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder but is now seen as an early copy of Bruegel’s original work.

• It recounts the tale of a famous Greek myth of a character’s fate due to his vanity. Which tale/ Id the painting?

Fall of Icarus/ Landscape with the fall of Icarus

Q.22.

• The Egyptian god of sky, X is represented by a Y. According to mythology the sun is the right eye of X and the moon is his left eye and they traverse the sky when the Y flies across it. X had a fierce battle for Egypt in which he lost his left eye. This is sometimes given as an explanation for the moon being less bright than the sun. ID X and Y.

• X = Horus, Y = Falcon

Q.23.

• Shashi Tharoor in his 1989 satirical work ‘The Great Indian Novel’ tries to recast Mahabharata in the context of Indian Independence Movement and three decades following that. Figures from Indian history are transformed into characters from mythology, and the mythical story of India is retold as a history of Indian independence and subsequent history. For eg: Mahatma Gandhi is portrayed as Bhishma, the Kauravas are the Congress party and so on. The novel-equivalent of Draupadi is Draupadi Mokrashi. Who/what does she represent in the modern context?

Democracy (D-Mokrashi)

Q.24.

• How do we know them better and why did they assume these fake identities?

Kanka, claimed to expert in casting dice

Ballava( or Vallabha), the cook

Brihannala, dressed as a woman and teaches dance and music.

Granthika, the stableman

Tantipala, the cowherd

Pandavas. The 13th year of exile had to be spent incognito

• Kanka- Yudhisthira

• Ballava- Bhima

• Brihannala-Arjun

• Granthika- Nakul

• Tantipala- Sahadeva

Q.25.

• The etymology behind his name suggests that he had a calm and steady demeanour during war. His was the only chariot that floated a few inches above ground due to his righteousness and adherence to Dharma. However, after one particular episode during the war the chariot descended to the ground bringing him on par with other humans. Who is this individual and what incident?

Yudhishthira and the half-truth about Ashwatthama’s fate that led to Drona’s death.

Q.26.

• Amish Tripathi’s new book ‘Sita: Warrior of Mithila’ is set to be released on 29th May. Known for his unique marketing strategies, Tripathi along with X revealed the title of this book. Who is X, who also has a sort of connection with the subject of the book, although you might know this person for a more famous role (2000-08)and a different career choice after acting?

Smriti Irani ( who played Sita on Zee Tv’sRamayana(2001-02) )

Q.27. Id

Sisyphus

Q. 28.

• The ouroboros is a symbol from Egyptian folklore, first observed in Tutankhamun's tomb. It involves two snakes, both of which are believed to be manifestations of the deity Mehen, and their configuration is meant to represent the union of Ra and Osiris. It subsequently has come to refer to the infinite, the cosmos and as a symbol in alchemy. What is the ouroboros/ what is the configuration I'm talking about?

Two snakes each eating the others tail

Q.29.

• In Greek lore, X, who was one of the Argonauts, was regarded as one of the greatest singers who ever lived. However, he was plagued by one sadness- the untimely death of his wife. He decides to win her life back by singing to Hades, who is pleased and allows him to take her back on the condition that he does not turn around to look at her until they are in the sunlight. But like with all Greek tales, he looks back, she dies (again) and he cannot win her back. ID X, who you might recognise from, among other sources, a famous theater in LA.

Orpheus

Q.30.

• The Japanese hare is a subspecies of hare, which ranges between 17-21 inches and is typically brown, although it sometimes turns white in the winters. This animal is particular importance to Tottori in Tottori prefecture, which also has the Hakuto shrine dedicated to this animal. What is the significance of this animal?

Hare of Inaba

Q.31.

• X was the daughter of King Agamemnon. She along with her brother, Orestes, plotted revenge against her mother Clytemenestra and stepfather Aegisthus, in a somewhat Hamlet-esque fashion, for the murder of their father. However most of us would know as analogous condition to that named after the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. ID X.

Electra

Q.32.

• This image was taken by the Sentinel 3A satellite in March 2016. The red colour arises due to radiometer and colour data being combined to give an idea of vegetation growing along the river. However that did not stop clickbait sites to capitalise claiming it to be similar to a Biblical phenomenon. Who caused the original phenomenon?

Moses turning the Nile to blood

• Written Theme ( (10 *0.5)+5)

• Ramakien is Thailand’s national epic derived from the epic Ramayana.

• The main story is identical to that of the Ramayana, many other aspects were transposed into a Thai context. Give the names of the original charcters in Ramayana whose derived names in Ramakien are as shown:

• For eg: Phra Ram: Ram

Phra Isuan: Shiva/Ishvara

Phra Phrom: Brahma

• 0.5 points for each correct answer and +5 for getting all correct

Identify

1. Phra narai/Witsanu

2. Thotsarat

3. Kumphakan

4. Intharachit

5. Nang Kaiyakesi

6. Nang Sida

7. Chomphuphan

8. Pra Satrut

9. Phra Uma-thewi

10. Ongkhot

Answers

1. Phra narai/Witsanu: Vishnu/ Narayana

2. Thotsarat: King Dashratha

3. Kumphakan: Kumbhakarna

4. Intharachit: Indrajit/ Meghnada

5. Nang Kaiyakesi: Kaikeyi

6. Nang Sida: Sita

7. Chomphuphan: Jambavan

8. Pra Satrut: Shatrughna

9. Phra Uma-thewi: Parvati/Uma

10. Ongkhot: Angad