CHSE Odisha Elective History key terms

Ancient name for the coastal region of present-day Odisha, famous for the bloody war fought by Ashoka around 261 BCE, after which he embraced Buddhism and renounced conquest by force.

A long Prakrit inscription carved in a cave on Udayagiri hill near Bhubaneswar recording the reign of King Kharavela of the Mahameghavahana dynasty, a key source for early Odishan history.

Third-century BCE ruler of Kalinga of the Mahameghavahana line, known from the Hathigumpha inscription for military campaigns, public works and patronage of Jainism.

No confident definition; this term was listed in error and should be replaced or verified before use.

South Asia's earliest urban culture, flourishing c. 2600–1900 BCE in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra plains, known for planned cities, standardised weights and undeciphered seals.

A Harappan site in Gujarat with a large enclosed basin interpreted as a dockyard, plus streets, drains and bead workshops, showing maritime trade links with West Asia.

The period c. 1500–600 BCE when the Rigveda and later Vedic texts were composed, marked by pastoral and then settled agrarian society and the rise of varna distinctions.

The oldest collection of Vedic hymns, composed in early Sanskrit and preserved orally with great precision, used as a source for religion, society and geography of the Vedic period.

The fourfold social classification of Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra found in Vedic and later texts, distinct from the many endogamous birth groups called jati.

The first empire to unify most of the subcontinent, c. 321–185 BCE, founded by Chandragupta Maurya, with a centralised administration described by Megasthenes and Kautilya's Arthashastra.

Mauryan emperor (c. 268–232 BCE) who after the Kalinga war promoted dhamma through edicts, sent Buddhist missions abroad and is remembered for welfare measures and religious tolerance.

Inscriptions of Ashoka carved on rock surfaces and pillars in Prakrit using Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts, setting out moral teachings, welfare policies and messages to officials and subjects.

A Sanskrit treatise on statecraft attributed to Kautilya, discussing taxation, espionage, diplomacy, war and economic regulation, and a major source for Mauryan administration.

A group of Middle Indo-Aryan languages used in inscriptions, Jain texts and early Buddhist writings, including the language of Ashoka's edicts and the Hathigumpha record.

The sequence of Turkic and Afghan dynasties ruling from Delhi between 1206 and 1526, comprising the Mamluks, Khaljis, Tughluqs, Sayyids and Lodis, with evolving administrative and revenue systems.

A unit of land revenue assignment granted by a Sultan to an officer, who collected revenue and maintained troops from it in return for service, without owning the land itself.

Sultan of Delhi (1296–1316) who fixed prices of goods, controlled the market, raised land revenue sharply in the Doab and repelled Mongol invasions with a large standing army.

Sultan of Delhi (1325–1351) known for ambitious experiments such as transferring the capital to Daulatabad and introducing token currency, and for his wide knowledge and harsh punishments.

The empire founded by Babur in 1526 that at its height under Akbar and Aurangzeb governed most of the subcontinent through mansabdars, jagirs and a centralised revenue system.

Akbar's ranking system grading officers by zat (personal status) and sawar (cavalry maintained), fixing pay and obligations and linking military service to revenue assignments.

A revenue assignment in the Mughal system granted to a mansabdar in place of cash salary, from which he collected the state's share of produce and supported his troops.

Mughal emperor (1556–1605) who consolidated the empire through military expansion, Rajput alliances, the mansabdari and zabti revenue reforms, and his policy of sulh-i kul, or universal tolerance.

A hereditary local landholder with rights to collect revenue from cultivators and keep a share, who also performed administrative and sometimes military functions for regional rulers.

The 1757 battle in Bengal in which the forces of the English East India Company under Robert Clive defeated Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah, opening the way to Company political power.

The 1764 battle in which Company troops defeated the combined armies of the Mughal emperor, Awadh and Bengal, leading to the grant of the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1765.

The 1793 revenue system in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa under Cornwallis that fixed land revenue permanently and made zamindars the recognised proprietors responsible for payment.

A colonial revenue arrangement, associated with Thomas Munro in Madras, that assessed revenue directly on individual cultivators called ryots rather than on intermediary landlords.

A policy applied by Dalhousie whereby a princely state without a natural heir was annexed by the Company, used to justify takeovers such as Satara and Jhansi before 1857.

A widespread uprising beginning with mutiny among Company sepoys at Meerut and spreading across northern and central India, suppressed by 1858 and followed by transfer of power to the Crown.

British legislation abolishing Company rule and placing India under the Crown, creating the office of Secretary of State for India and a Council of India in London.

Founded in 1885, the main organisation leading the nationalist movement; it shifted from petitions to mass agitation and finally demanded complete independence by 1930.

Gandhi's 1920–1922 campaign urging Indians to withdraw cooperation from British institutions through boycotts of schools, courts and foreign cloth, suspended after the Chauri Chaura violence.

The 1930–1934 campaign of deliberate law-breaking launched with the Salt March, aimed at refusing taxes and defying colonial regulations to press the demand for complete independence.

Gandhi's 1930 walk from Sabarmati to Dandi on the Gujarat coast, where he made salt in defiance of the government monopoly, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement.

The 1942 mass campaign demanding immediate British withdrawal, launched by the Congress after the Cripps Mission failed, met with mass arrests and marked by widespread local uprisings.

The process after 1947 by which over 550 princely states acceded to India or Pakistan through negotiation, instruments of accession and, in some cases, military action such as Hyderabad.

The redrawing of Indian state boundaries mainly along language lines, culminating in the States Reorganisation Act of 1956, after movements such as the Andhra and Odisha campaigns.

A grouping of states formed in 1961 at Belgrade that refused to join either Cold War bloc, with India under Nehru among its leading founders and advocates.

An Odia organisation founded in 1903 that campaigned for the political unification of Odia-speaking tracts, contributing to the creation of a separate Odisha province in 1936.

A peasant uprising in 1842 in the Kanika region of coastal Odisha against oppressive revenue demands and the salt monopoly under colonial administration.

A 1817 armed uprising by Odia paikas, or militia-landholders, of Khurda against Company revenue policies and the loss of their hereditary rights, led by Bakshi Jagabandhu.

The upheaval in France from 1789 that overthrew the monarchy and privileged orders, proclaimed liberty, equality and popular sovereignty, and reshaped European politics.

The transition from handicraft to machine production beginning in eighteenth-century Britain, driven by steam power, factories and new transport, and spreading across Europe and beyond.

The belief that a people sharing language, history or culture should form a self-governing nation, a powerful force behind nineteenth-century unifications and twentieth-century decolonisation.

The prolonged geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies after 1945, fought through alliances, arms races, proxy conflicts and ideology rather than direct war.

Evidence produced at or near the time of the event studied, such as inscriptions, coins, letters, official records or contemporary chronicles, used as the raw material of historical argument.

A later work that interprets and synthesises primary evidence, such as a textbook, monograph or journal article, whose reliability depends on the author's methods and sources.

The study of inscriptions on stone, metal or other durable material; in Indian history it supplies dates, royal genealogies and administrative detail unavailable in other records.

The study of coins, which yields evidence of dynastic succession, economic conditions, trade contacts and iconography, especially for periods with few surviving written records.

The study of how history has been written, examining changing methods, assumptions and interpretations, such as colonial, nationalist, Marxist and subaltern approaches to India's past.

A school of historical writing from the 1980s, associated with Ranajit Guha, that recovers the agency and perspectives of peasants and other ordinary groups neglected by elite-focused narratives.

The recovery and interpretation of material remains such as buildings, pottery and burials, providing evidence for preliterate societies and supplementing texts for later periods.