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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Bring out the salient features of the religious developments in the Post-Maurya period. How was contemporary art influenced by it?

  • UPSC 1988
  • Post-Mauryan Period

The period c. 200 BCE–300 CE, spanning the Shungas, Satavahanas, Indo-Greeks, Shakas and Kushanas, saw the Mauryan imperial framework give way to plural regional and foreign polities. Religion mirrored this plurality: older sacrificial and monastic traditions persisted, but devotional worship of images in shrines became the era's decisive new departure. This shift in religious sensibility…

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Rise of Mahayana Buddhism and the Cult of the Bodhisattva
  • Bhagavatism, Vaishnavism and the Making of Puranic Hinduism
  • Shaivism and the Survival of Popular Cults
  • Jainism, the Ajivikas and a Plural Religious Landscape
  • Foreign Rulers as Patrons: Legitimacy through Multiple Faiths
  • Art Transformed: The Rise of the Image
  • …and 3 more sections, with a conclusion

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