Q 01/05

Kashmir's traditional noon chai, a salted tea boiled with baking soda, is famous for turning which colour?

A) Green

B) Pink

C) Blue

D) Gold

Answer · why

B) Pink

Pink comes from boiling the leaves with baking soda until the brew turns burgundy, then adding milk. 'Noon' means salt in Kashmiri, so the tea is sipp...

Q 02/05

The Kashmir Valley lies between the Great Himalayas and which lower range to its southwest?

A) Zanskar

B) Pir Panjal

C) Hindu Kush

D) Karakoram

Answer · why

B) Pir Panjal

The Pir Panjal separates the valley from the Jammu hills. The Jawahar Tunnel was bored beneath its Banihal Pass in the 1950s so that traffic could get...

Q 03/05

In one traditional etymology, Kashmir is named after which Vedic sage, said to have settled people there?

A) Kashyapa

B) Kaushika

C) Kapila

D) Kanva

Answer · why

A) Kashyapa

Kashyapa gives 'Kashyapa-mir', the sage's lake. Legend says the valley once lay under water and, in one telling, he cut a gap in the hills at Baramull...

Q 04/05

Which ancient Sanskrit grammarian's Ashtadhyayi contains one of the earliest known mentions of Kashmir?

A) Valmiki

B) Panini

C) Kalidasa

D) Patanjali

Answer · why

B) Panini

Panini listed its people as the Kashmirikas. His grammar packs Sanskrit into nearly 4,000 terse rules, and it is conventionally taken to mark the star...

Q 05/05

Which Mughal emperor conquered Kashmir in 1586?

A) Babur

B) Aurangzeb

C) Shah Jahan

D) Akbar

Answer · why

D) Akbar

Akbar summoned Kashmir's king to the Mughal court again and again, and sent an army in late 1585 when he still had not come. He later visited the vall...