question_answer

Read the following passage carefully:

The Ajanta caves, we were told, lay in the side of a ravine in wild and desolate country some 350 miles to the northwest, at the extreme tip of Hyderabad state where it touches the Bombay Province. Properly speaking they were not caves at all/ but temples which had been excavated from the living rock by Buddhist monks. These monks had first come to the ravine somewhere in the second century before Christ and they had begun by hacking out the rock by hand and hurling it down into the river below. Then/ probably with large mirrors to reflect the sunshine from the ravine outside/ they set about the decoration of the walls/ the doorways and the ceilings. They continued for the next eight hundred years/ always painting and sculpturing Lord Buddha/ but setting him against an idyllic background of folk tales and the everyday life of their own time. In much the same way as in the Italian Renaissance which over a thousand years later/ the work was subsidised by the wealthy merchants and the Princes of the surrounding countryside.

On the basis of your reading of the above passage answer the following questions:

(i)   Who came to the ravines in the second century before Christ?

(ii) What did the monks use to reflect light into the caves?

(iii) What did the caves depict?

(iv) The work was subsidised by the wealthy merchants. 1 (Change the voice)

(v)  Who subsidised the monk's work?

(vi) Give the adjective form of 'reflection'.

(vii) Find the homophone of 'tail' from the passage.

(viii) Would you like to see the caves? If so/ why? If not/ why not?

Answer:

(i) The Buddhist monks came to the ravines in the second century before Christ.

(ii) The monks used large mirrors to reflect light into the caves.

(iii) The caves depicted Lord Buddha and Buddhist folk tales and everyday life of the monks.

(iv) The wealthy merchants subsidised the work.

(v) It was subsidised by the wealthy merchants and the Princes of the surrounding countryside.

(vi) Reflective.

(vii) Tal

(viii) I would surely like to see caves. The caves are quite a mysterious feature of natural physical formation.

The paintings and sculptures on the walls of the caves are a part of our rich cultural heritage.