NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 16 The chapter in five points — Before we move on …

Book page 123 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

The 11th and 12th centuries marked a turning point in Indian history (hence the chapter’s title).

Answer

This is the sentence the whole chapter is built to prove, and the title is the clue: a tide turns — it does not stop.

What turned. Before these two centuries, foreign incursions had been repelled or absorbed; the Arabs’ raids, as the last chapter said, “had little overall impact on India”. After these two centuries, a foreign dynasty is ruling from Delhi. Between the two lies the change: “invasions by Turkic powers penetrated much deeper into north India, despite stubborn resistance from native kingdoms.”

Three markers of the turn.

1008 — Ānandapāla’s defeat opens “easy access to the Indus plains and beyond”.
1192 — the Second Battle of Tarain, after which Muhammad Ghūrī takes Delhi.
1206 — Muhammad Ghūrī and Bakhtiyār Khiljī both die, and “their territory in north India remained under the control of Muhammad’s generals”. The Delhi Sultanate follows, in Grade 8.

Why ‘turning point’ and not ‘disaster’ or ‘conquest’: because the chapter measures both sides of the balance. The invasions “altered the power equations in a profound way”, yet trade grew, temples rose, books were written, and most of India was never under Turkic rule. A turning point is where a story changes direction — not where it ends.

Q2.

In the 11th century, Mahmūd of Ghazni, after defeating the Hindu Shāhis, conducting many raids into north India, extracting much plunder, destroying temples and taking away prisoners. He however did not seek to establish his rule in India.

Answer

Mahmūd’s pattern was raid and return — never settle. The chapter gives the sequence and the evidence for it.

Stage	What happened
Clearing the door	The Ghaznavids overran the Hindu Shāhis, defeating Jayapāla and then, in 1008, Ānandapāla — even though Ānandapāla had “the support of several rulers from north India”. The battle was fought in northern Punjab
The raids	“In all, Mahmūd conducted 17 campaigns in India; after each one, he would return to Ghazni with huge amounts of booty.” Mathura (1018), then Kannauj, then Somnath (1026)
The human cost	“Not only destruction and plunder, but also the slaughter of tens of thousands of Indian civilians and the capture of numerous prisoners, including children, who were taken to be sold on slave markets of Central Asia”
The limit	“Mahmūd did not attempt to establish a permanent base in India beyond Punjab.” He died at Ghazni in 1030, aged 58

Resistance was real, even when it failed. He “met with strong resistance (from the Chandellas of central India, among others) and was close to defeat on a few occasions”; at Somnath there was “strong resistance from the locals and severe losses to his army”. And after his death his nephew Sālār Masūd was stopped at Bahraich by the local ruler Suheldev, and fell in the battle — though here the chapter is careful about its sources, saying this rests on “oral history and… a 17th-century Muslim chronicle”.

Note on the sentence itself: the book’s bullet has a small slip — “after defeating the Hindu Shāhis, conducting many raids…” never reaches its main verb. Read it as: Mahmūd defeated the Hindu Shāhis, conducted many raids, extracted plunder, destroyed temples and took away prisoners.

Q3.

In the 12th century, Muhammad Ghurī and his generals conquered Delhi and large parts of the Gangetic plains, all the way to Bengal, causing much destruction. Important centres of learning, in particular, were left in ruins.

Answer

This is the second invasion — and the one that stayed. The difference is stated in one line of the chapter: “Unlike Mahmūd, who merely plundered and withdrew, he sought territorial conquest.”

The sequence.

The Ghūrids, once vassals of the Ghaznavids, took Ghazni for themselves. Muhammad Ghūrī “soon brought parts of Punjab and Sindh under his rule”.
1178 — his push into Gujarat failed; he was defeated at the foot of Mount Abu by the Chaulukyas.
1191 — Pṛithvīrāja III defeated him at Tarain (today’s Taraori in Haryana).
1192 — “within a year, Muhammad returned with a larger army”. In the Second Battle of Tarain, “which witnessed fierce fighting”, he defeated Pṛithvīrāja and executed him, and went on to capture Delhi.
He returned to Ghazni but “left behind trusted military commanders to consolidate his gains — most notably his general Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who later founded the Delhi Sultanate”.
Aibak “encountered much resistance”, but expanded the territory; his commander Bakhtiyār Khiljī conquered Bihar and Bengal, catching the Sena ruler unaware at Nādīya around 1203–04.

The centres of learning. On his way to Bengal, Bakhtiyār Khiljī “destroyed large Buddhist monasteries and universities such as Nālandā and Vikramaśhilā, collecting huge booty and slaughtering large numbers of monks”. The chapter records the historians’ verdict: “There is a consensus among historians of Buddhism that this destruction of its large centres of learning precipitated the decline of Buddhism in India, although a few other factors may have also played a role.”

Why the conquest did not go further: Bakhtiyār’s attempt on Tibet ended in Kāmarūpa in 1205, where the local ruler’s forces “inflicted severe losses on his army” and the local population “destroyed food and fodder, in effect starving the invading army”. He “escaped with only a handful of his men”. In 1206 Muhammad Ghūrī was killed and Bakhtiyār Khiljī was assassinated, “apparently by his own men”.

Q4.

Still, large parts of northern India and all of south India remained outside the hold of the Turkic invaders. Powerful kingdoms often waged war against each other, though alliances were not uncommon.

Answer

This is the corrective the chapter insists on: the invasions are the loudest part of the story, not the largest part.

Who stayed free. The whole of the south — Cholas, Pāṇḍyas, Kākatīyas, Hoysalas, Western Chālukyas — was never touched by the Ghaznavids or the Ghūrids. So were the Eastern Gangas in Kalinga and Kāmarūpa in the northeast, which actually defeated Bakhtiyār Khiljī.

Wars between neighbours. These were constant, and the chapter does not soften them: the Cholas and the Western Chālukyas fought “fierce wars” over Vengi; the Eastern Gangas “clashed” with the Cholas; Pṛithvīrāja III “waged many battles with neighbouring kings, such as those of Gujarat and Malwa”; the Cholas’ “frequent and extensive conflicts… drained their treasury and contributed to the decline of the empire”.

But alliances too, and of three different kinds.

Marriage alliances. The Eastern Gangas “had matrimonial alliances with the Cholas”; the Eastern Chālukyas were drawn into the Chola orbit the same way; the Sri Lankan king Vijayabāhu I married a princess from Kalinga.
Coalitions against an invader. Ānandapāla fought Mahmūd with “the support of several rulers from north India”, and King Bhoja of the Paramāras “was among the Indian rulers who sent their forces to assist the Hindu Shāhi rulers against Mahmūd of Ghazni”. As ‘Taking Stock’ puts it, “on a few occasions, native rulers even came together to form a coalition against a foreign invader.”
Alliances of trade. Rājendra’s naval expedition was “conducted with the support of many Indian merchant guilds”.

Why both things are true at once: these were independent kingdoms, not provinces of one state. Independent neighbours compete — over land, ports and trade routes — and they also cooperate when a bigger threat appears. Reading only the wars gives you a picture of chaos; reading only the alliances gives you a picture that never existed. The chapter asks you to hold both.

Q5.

Internal and external trade, art and literature, and monumental architecture continued to thrive, and elements of Indian culture travelled abroad, especially to Southeast Asia and China.

Answer

The continuity column of the chapter, in four parts.

What continued	The chapter’s evidence
Trade	“Despite the political disturbances… India’s trade with China and Southeast Asia kept growing.” Coins and pottery from those regions have been found at many west-coast sites, which had “many seaports as well as shipyards manufacturing seafaring ships”. The merchant guilds “survived and adapted”
The economy underneath	Agriculture stayed “the mainstay of the economy — which remains true even today”: rice and barley, saffron, spices, ginger, wheat, cotton — and rulers maintained irrigation works to “mitigate the vagaries of seasonal rains”
Art and literature	Bhoja’s treatises; Someśhvara III’s Mānasollāsa; Jayadeva’s Gītagovindam; Bhāskarāchārya’s mathematics; Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit all flourishing — “not only in Sanskrit but also in regional languages”
Monumental architecture	Khajuraho’s Kandāriyā Mahādeva and Lakṣhmaṇa temples; the Hoysala temples; Warangal fort; the Chola temples at Thanjavur and Gangaikoṇḍacholapuram; the Jagannātha temple at Puri

And travelling abroad. “External trade was also a vehicle for the spread of Indian culture in Southeast Asia and China.” The clearest single proof is Angkor Wat in Cambodia — built in the 12th century by the Khmer king Sūryavarman II, the largest religious monument in the world, dedicated to Viṣhṇu, inscribed in Old Khmer and Sanskrit, carved with scenes from the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata, its five śhikharas standing for Mount Meru — and later, after a change of political power, turned into a Buddhist temple.

Did you know? Indian influence travelled in both directions, and peacefully. A Śhrīvijaya ruler donated to Nālandā and asked the Pāla king for land to build another monastery there — “the request was granted, as a copper-plate found at Nālandā recorded.” The empire Rājendra attacked in 1025 was also an empire that funded Indian universities.

Was this helpful?