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SSC CGL Ancient History Questions 2026 (Ancient India GK MCQ — Indus Valley to Harsha) — Free Chapter Wise Test in Hindi & English

Who excavated Lothal, which Buddhist council split the Sangha, which edict tells of the Kalinga war — SSC asks Ancient India as short, sharp facts, and the wrong options are always names from the same period. Practise 300 Ancient History questions in 12 tests that run in book order, from prehistory and the Harappan cities to the Mauryas, the Guptas, the Sangam kingdoms, Harsha, the Chalukyas and the Pallavas. Every test is in English and Hindi, and every question has a 6–7 point solution that also covers the facts around it.

12 Tests 300 Questions 25 Questions per Test English & हिंदी

Ancient History Tests — Pick a Test and Start

Tap below to see all the tests. They follow the order of the syllabus — Test 1 starts with prehistory and the Indus Valley, Test 12 ends with Harsha, the Chalukyas and the Pallavas — so you can take them one after another or jump to the period you are revising. Choose English or हिंदी on any test.

Ancient India All Chapter Tests Checking… View tests

Set at real SSC CGL and CHSL level. Each test mixes the four ways SSC asks history — direct one-line questions, statement questions, match the following and assertion–reason — and no fact is asked twice across the 300 questions.

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Ancient Indian History is a fact chapter. SSC does not ask you to explain why the Mauryan empire declined; it asks who wrote the Indica, where the Great Bath was found, or which Gupta king issued the first silver coins. The options are always four names from the same table — four Harappan sites, four Buddhist councils, four Gupta rulers — so a half-remembered fact is exactly what the paper is built to catch.

Marks are lost in three places. The first is look-alike names: Chandragupta Maurya and Chandragupta I and II, Kalashoka and Ashoka, Kanishka's council and Ashoka's council. The second is site–state–river pairs: Kalibangan on the Ghaggar in Rajasthan, Lothal on the Bhogava in Gujarat, Manda on the Chenab. The third is text–author pairs: Mudrarakshasa and Vishakhadatta, Harshacharita and Banabhatta, Silappadikaram and Ilango Adigal. The tests here are built around exactly these three.

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How Many Ancient History Questions Are Asked in SSC CGL?

History as a whole — ancient, medieval and modern — gives three to four of the 25 General Awareness questions in most SSC CGL Tier I shifts, and Ancient India is usually one or two of them. CHSL, MTS and the Tier II General Awareness paper follow the same pattern. The topics below are the ones SSC returns to most often, roughly in order.

TopicHow oftenWhat is usually asked
Indus Valley CivilizationVery frequentSites, rivers, states, excavators, what was found where
Buddhism and JainismVery frequentBuddhist councils, Tirthankaras, texts, sects, holy places
Mauryan EmpireFrequentAshoka's edicts, Megasthenes, Arthashastra, officials
Gupta AgeFrequentRulers and titles, Fa-hien, Kalidasa, Aryabhata, temples
Vedic AgeRegularThe four Vedas, Rigvedic rivers, Upanishads, six darshanas
Post-Mauryan, Sangam and post-GuptaRegularKushans, Satavahanas, Sangam texts, Harsha, Pallava temples

Ancient India also overlaps with Art & Culture — stupas, cave temples and the Gandhara and Mathura schools are asked under both headings.

What Each Ancient History Test Covers

The 300 questions run through the syllabus in order, 25 to a test. Where a period ends partway through a test, the next one begins in the same test.

TestTopics
Test 1Sources of ancient history, Stone Age and Chalcolithic cultures, start of the Indus Valley Civilization
Test 2Indus Valley Civilization — sites, town planning, trade, religion; start of the Vedic Age
Test 3Vedic Age — the four Vedas, Brahmanas, Upanishads, Vedangas, six darshanas, Rigvedic polity and gods
Test 4Later Vedic Age; the 16 Mahajanapadas and the rise of Magadha
Test 5Haryanka, Shishunaga and Nanda dynasties, Persian and Alexander's invasions; Buddhism begins
Test 6Buddhism — councils, texts, sects, holy places; Jainism — Mahavira, Tirthankaras, councils
Test 7Jainism and other sects; the Mauryan Empire — Chandragupta, Bindusara, Ashoka and his edicts
Test 8Mauryan administration, economy, society and art; Sunga and Kanva dynasties
Test 9Satavahanas and Kharavela; Indo-Greeks, Sakas, Parthians and Kushans
Test 10Gandhara, Mathura and Amaravati art, Indo-Roman trade; the Sangam Age — Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas, Sangam literature
Test 11The Gupta Age — rulers, coins, inscriptions, administration, society, literature and science
Test 12Gupta temples and paintings; Harsha, Hiuen Tsang, the Chalukyas of Vatapi and the Pallavas of Kanchi

The three traps that cost the most marks

  • Same name, different king. Chandragupta Maurya founded the Mauryan empire; Chandragupta I started the Gupta era; Chandragupta II was Vikramaditya. Read the period in the question before the name.
  • The extreme answer in a statement question. “Only”, “first”, “largest” and “northernmost” are where SSC hides the wrong statement — check those words first.
  • Mixing up the councils. Four Buddhist councils and two Jain councils, each with its own place, king and president — learn them as one table, not as six separate facts.

Solved Examples — SSC CGL Ancient History

Q1. Who wrote the Ashtadhyayi, the oldest surviving work on Sanskrit grammar?
(a) Panini
(b) Patanjali
(c) Yaska
(d) Pingala
Panini wrote the Ashtadhyayi, a grammar of Sanskrit in about 4,000 short rules (sutras). Patanjali later wrote the Mahabhashya, a commentary on it; Yaska wrote the Nirukta on Vedic word meanings, and Pingala wrote on metre. Answer: (a)
Q2. Consider the following statements about the Ellora caves:
1. They are in Maharashtra.
2. They include Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves.
3. The Kailasa temple there is carved out of a single rock.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
All three are correct. Ellora, in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) district of Maharashtra, has 34 caves of three faiths side by side, and the Kailasa temple (Cave 16) was cut downward from one rock under the Rashtrakutas. Answer: (d)
Q3. Read the Assertion (A) and Reason (R) carefully.
Assertion (A): The Gupta period is often called the Classical Age of ancient India.
Reason (R): Sanskrit literature, art and science reached a high level in this period.
(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
(b) Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
(c) A is true, but R is false
(d) A is false, but R is true
The Gupta age gave Kalidasa's plays and poems, Aryabhata's astronomy and the Ajanta paintings — that flowering is the very reason it is called the Classical Age. Answer: (a)
Q4. ‘सुश्रुत संहिता’ का मुख्य संबंध किस विषय से है?
(a) शल्य चिकित्सा (सर्जरी)
(b) खगोल विज्ञान
(c) व्याकरण
(d) संगीत
सुश्रुत संहिता प्राचीन भारत का शल्य चिकित्सा (सर्जरी) का प्रमुख ग्रंथ है; इसीलिए सुश्रुत को ‘शल्य चिकित्सा का जनक’ कहा जाता है। चरक संहिता का संबंध औषधि (मेडिसिन) से है। उत्तर: (a)

How the Ancient History Tests Work

  • 25 questions per test, with a full question palette — answered, skipped, marked for review, not visited.
  • 12 tests, 300 questions, in syllabus order — from prehistory and the Indus Valley to Harsha, the Chalukyas and the Pallavas, with no fact repeated across the chapter.
  • All four SSC question types — direct questions, statement questions, match the following and assertion–reason.
  • Optional 15-minute timer — with the clock for exam speed, without it while you are still learning the facts.
  • Marking: +2 correct, −0.5 wrong, 0 unattempted — the same scheme as the real paper.
  • 6–7 point solutions open after you submit — the answer, the facts around it (dates, places, rulers, texts) and what each wrong option actually refers to, so one question revises a whole topic.
  • English and Hindi — every test is available in both; choose the language when you start.
  • Free with a TrickySSC account — sign in once with Google or your mobile number, and every test is open to you.

How to Prepare Ancient History for SSC CGL

  1. Learn it as tables. Harappan site – river – state – excavator; Buddhist council – place – king – president; Mahajanapada – capital. SSC questions come straight out of such tables.
  2. Keep a timeline in front of you. Harappa, Vedic, Mahajanapadas, Maurya, post-Maurya, Gupta, post-Gupta — placing every fact on it stops you mixing up rulers with the same name.
  3. Pair every text with its author. Indica – Megasthenes, Arthashastra – Kautilya, Harshacharita – Banabhatta, Tolkappiyam – Tolkappiyar. Text–author pairs are among the most repeated questions.
  4. Read the solutions, not just the answer. Each solution here carries six or seven related facts — reading them is how 300 questions cover the whole chapter.
  5. Revise in short rounds. One test a day keeps the earlier periods fresh while you move ahead, and then check yourself on a previous year paper.

All SSC CGL Chapter Wise Tests

Every chapter below has its own free chapter tests with full solutions.

Browse all 78 chapter tests — Maths (35) · Reasoning (28) · English (14) · GK (1)
English Language
General Intelligence & Reasoning
Quantitative Aptitude (Maths)
General Awareness

SSC CGL Ancient History — Frequently Asked Questions

How many Ancient History questions are asked in SSC CGL?
History as a whole gives three to four of the 25 General Awareness questions in most SSC CGL Tier I shifts, and Ancient India is usually one or two of them. CHSL, MTS and the Tier II General Awareness paper follow the same pattern.
Which Ancient India topics are most important for SSC?
The Indus Valley Civilization, Buddhism and Jainism, the Mauryan Empire and the Gupta Age come up most often, followed by the Vedic Age, the Kushans and Satavahanas, the Sangam Age and Harsha with the Chalukyas and Pallavas.
How many tests and questions are in this chapter?
Twelve tests of 25 questions each, 300 questions in all. They run in syllabus order, from prehistory and the Indus Valley in Test 1 to Harsha, the Chalukyas and the Pallavas in Test 12, and no fact is asked twice.
Are the Ancient History tests available in Hindi?
Yes. Every test is available in both English and Hindi with the same questions and the same answer key, and you choose the language when you start the test.
What kind of questions are in the tests?
All four kinds SSC uses for history: direct one-line questions, statement questions, match the following and assertion-reason. Most are direct questions, as in the real paper.
What do the solutions contain?
Six to seven short points for every question: the answer, the related facts around it such as dates, places, rulers and texts, and what each wrong option actually refers to.
Is there a timer, and what is the marking scheme?
An optional 15-minute timer per test, and the real exam marking of +2 for a correct answer, −0.5 for a wrong one and 0 for an unattempted question.
Are the Ancient History tests free?
Yes, every test is free. You need a free TrickySSC account to start one — sign in once with Google or your mobile number and every test is open to you.

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