CTET 1 Mar 2026 Paper 1 English, Question 149

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow (Q. Nos. 144 to 150) by selecting the correct/most appropriate options.

The contacts between India and the western world which Chandragupta Maurya had established continued during the reign of his son, Bindusara. Ambassadors came to the court at Pataliputra from Ptolemy of Egypt and Antiochus, the son and successor of Seleucus Nicator of Western Asia. Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, added to these contacts, and India became in his time an important international centre, chiefly because of the rapid spread of Buddhism.

Ashoka succeeded to this great empire in about 273 BC. He had previously served as Viceroy in the North-Western province of which Taxila, the university centre, was the capital. Already the empire included the greater part of India and extended right into Central Asia. Only the South-East and a part of the South were beyond its sway. The old dream of uniting the whole of India under one supreme government fired Ashoka and forthwith he undertook the conquest of Kalinga on the east coast, which corresponds roughly with modern Orissa and part of Andhra. His armies triumphed in spite of the brave and obstinate resistance of the people of Kalinga. There was a terrible slaughter in the war, and when news of this reached Ashoka, he was stricken with remorse and disgusted with war. Unique among the victorious monarchs and captains in history, he decided to abandon warfare in the full tide of victory. The whole of India acknowledged his sway, except for the southern tip, and that tip was his for the taking. But he refrained from any further aggression, and his mind turned, under the influence of the Buddha’s gospel, to conquests and adventures in other fields.