BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 68 of 144

Correct — D, None of the above. Both statements are well-formed sentences with the wrong king attached: the setter has simply exchanged the two reigns. Fa-Hien (Faxian) left Chang'an in 399 CE and travelled in India roughly between 405 and 411 CE, squarely inside the reign of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (c. 375–415 CE) — not Harsha's, who was not born until about 590. His own record, the Fo-kuo-ki, closes with the arithmetic: in James Legge's translation, “After Fâ-Hien set out from Ch'ang-gan, it took him six years to reach Central India; stoppages there extended over (other) six years; and on his return it took him three years to reach Ts'ing-chow. The countries through which he passed were a few under thirty.” That is fifteen years in all, ending on the Shandong coast in 414 CE. Inside those middle six years he spent three at Pataliputra “learning Sanskrit books and the Sanskrit speech, and writing out the Vinaya rules” — the Mahasanghika recension he had crossed Asia to find, because in north India he had met “one master transmitting orally (the rules) to another, but no written copies” — and two more at the seaport of Tamalipti (modern Tamluk) “writing out his Sûtras, and drawing pictures of images”, before a fourteen-day voyage to Sri Lanka. Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) belongs to the next century but one. He left China in 629 CE in defiance of an imperial travel ban, was in India from about 630 to 644, and re-entered Chang'an in 645 with 657 Sanskrit texts; Samuel Beal's translation of the record notes that “he has composed in twelve books the Ta-t'ang-si-yu-ki”, presented to Emperor Taizong in 646. His patron was Harshavardhana, who appears on almost every page of Book V as “Silâditya-râja”. The Si-yu-ki reports their first meeting — Harsha, touring his empire, sent word to Kumara-raja of Kamarupa, “I desire you to come at once to the assembly with the strange Sramana you are entertaining at the Nalanda convent” — then the great Kanauj assembly attended by “the kings of the twenty countries”, and the almsgiving at Prayaga where “Silâditya-râja, after the example of his ancestors, distributes here in one day the accumulated wealth of five years.” So statement 1 moves Fa-Hien forward by roughly two centuries and statement 2 moves Hiuen Tsang back by roughly the same span. Neither statement is correct as printed, and the answer is (d).

• (a)Only 1 — This accepts the false half of the pair — that Fa-Hien saw Harsha's India. Fa-Hien was home in China by 414 CE and Harsha was not born until about 590, so no part of the two lives overlaps; nearly two centuries and the whole later-Gupta collapse sit between them. The option is tempting because statement 1 puts the most famous pilgrim beside the most famous patron, and the sentence therefore “sounds” like something read before. It is also the option a candidate reaches for who has half-remembered the true rule — that one of these two pilgrims did meet Harsha — and attached it to the wrong name.
• (b)Only 2 — This accepts that Hiuen Tsang came under Chandragupta II. Chandragupta II died around 415 CE, more than two centuries before Xuanzang set out in 629 and reached India in 630. Candidates pick it when they recall that Xuanzang met a great Indian emperor but cannot recall which, and default to the better-known Gupta name — Vikramaditya being the more celebrated title in general reading. The give-away against it is Nalanda: Xuanzang studied there under Shilabhadra, and the Mahavihara reached that scale only well after the Guptas.
• (c)Both 1 and 2 — This is the answer of a candidate who recognises that all four names are real, that both pilgrims genuinely came to India, and that each did live under a great ruler — and stops there without testing the pairing. Every individual element in the two statements is historically sound; only the join is wrong. That is exactly what makes a swapped pair the most efficient trap available to a setter: it rewards recognition and punishes recall. Because both statements fail together, (c) collapses at the same moment (a) and (b) do.

Almost everything an outside eye recorded about Gupta and post-Gupta India comes from Chinese Buddhist monks who walked or sailed to India hunting authentic Vinaya (monastic discipline) texts and relics of the Buddha. Three matter for exams, and they are separated by clear spans of time. Fa-Hien (Faxian, in India c. 405–411 CE) is the earliest whose full record survives. His Fo-kuo-ki describes what he calls the “Middle Kingdom” — Madhyadesa — in terms that have become the standard picture of Gupta civil administration: the people “have not to register their households, or attend to any magistrates and their rules; only those who cultivate the royal land have to pay (a portion of) the grain from it”; “the king governs without decapitation or (other) corporal punishments”, criminals being fined, with the right hand struck off only for repeated rebellion; “in buying and selling commodities they use cowries”; and Chandalas live apart and, entering a city gate, “strike a piece of wood to make themselves known, so that men know and avoid them”. Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang, in India c. 630–644 CE) is the most detailed. The Si-yu-ki covers 138 countries in twelve books and is the single richest source both for Harsha's reign and for Nalanda at its height. I-Tsing (Yijing, in India c. 673–695 CE) came a generation later by sea via Srivijaya, spent about ten years at Nalanda, and wrote chiefly on monastic practice rather than politics. All three came for religion, not chronology — which is why dating them depends on Chinese court records at one end and on whatever Indian ruler they happen to name at the other.

The question turns on one fact, and it is chronological rather than doctrinal: Chandragupta II and Harsha are separated by about two hundred years. Fix either pilgrim confidently and the other falls out, because a swap cannot be half right — which is also the trap in the option set. With a swapped pair, (a), (b) and (c) all fail at the same instant, so a candidate who is only “half sure” has no safe partial answer to retreat to and must either commit or leave it. The cleanest anchor is Hiuen Tsang, and the reason is a difference in the kind of evidence each account offers. Fa-Hien never names a reigning king anywhere in the Fo-kuo-ki — his famous Madhyadesa passage says only “the king governs without decapitation”, an anonymous king — so his Gupta attribution is an inference from Chinese court dates, not a testimony. Hiuen Tsang, by contrast, names “Silâditya-râja” repeatedly, quotes his summons and his questions (“From what country do you come, and what do you seek in your travels?”), and describes his court routine — the day “divided into three portions”, the first for government and the second for religious devotion, with about a thousand Buddhist monks and five hundred Brahmans fed daily. That is the discriminating fact: the Hiuen Tsang–Harsha link is first-hand and repeated, while the Fa-Hien–Chandragupta II link is chronological. So lock Xuanzang to Harsha first; Fa-Hien then cannot also belong there, and the Gupta slot is the only one left. Statement 1 is false, statement 2 is false, and (d) follows.

• Fa-Hien left Chang'an in 399 CE, was in India c. 405–411 CE under Chandragupta II Vikramaditya (r. c. 375–415 CE), and reached China again in 413–414 by sea via Sri Lanka and Java; his record is the Fo-kuo-ki
• Fa-Hien's own accounting of the journey: six years out to Central India, six years of “stoppages” there, three years home — fifteen in all, through “a few under thirty” countries; three of the middle years were spent at Pataliputra copying the Mahasanghika Vinaya and two at the port of Tamalipti (Tamluk)
• Hiuen Tsang left China in 629 CE, travelled in India c. 630–644, returned to Chang'an in 645 with 657 Sanskrit texts, and completed the Si-yu-ki (Da Tang Xiyu Ji) in twelve books, covering 138 countries, in 646
• Harshavardhana ruled c. 606–647 CE from Kanauj; the Si-yu-ki calls him Siladitya and records the Kanauj assembly of “the kings of the twenty countries”, reached after a ninety-day progress along the Ganges, and the Prayaga almsgiving at which he gave away “in one day the accumulated wealth of five years”, ending with his own diadem and necklaces
• Fa-Hien never names a ruling king in his account — the Madhyadesa passage describes an anonymous king who “governs without decapitation”, with cowries as currency and no household registration — so the Gupta attribution rests on Chinese chronology, not on testimony
• Chronological order of the classic foreign visitors: Megasthenes (Chandragupta Maurya, c. 302 BCE) → Fa-Hien (Chandragupta II) → Hiuen Tsang (Harsha) → I-Tsing (c. 673–695 CE) → Al-Biruni (with Mahmud of Ghazni, Kitab-ul-Hind c. 1030 CE)

• Swapping the two pilgrims' patrons — Fa-Hien belongs to Chandragupta II and Hiuen Tsang to Harsha, and the exchange is the single commonest way this pair is set
• Assuming Fa-Hien attended Kanishka's Fourth Buddhist Council; Kanishka's council belongs to the 1st–2nd century CE, some three hundred years before Fa-Hien
• Reading Hiuen Tsang as hostile to Harsha; the Si-yu-ki presents Harsha as a generous patron of Buddhism, which is the exact opposite of what UPSC 2004 put in a statement

BPSC likes the two-statement swap — take two true associations, exchange them, and let “None of the above” be the answer — and it favours these pilgrims because Nalanda, Rajgir, Bodh Gaya, Vaishali and Pataliputra are all in Bihar, so the same names carry both an ancient-history and a Bihar-static question. UPSC has asked the identical personalities three ways: as a bare one-liner (2025, Fa-hien and Chandragupta II), as a chronological sequence against Megasthenes and I-Tsing (1999), and as a statement pair testing what Hiuen Tsang actually recorded about Harsha (2004). Learn the pair as dates, not as a slogan, and all three shapes fall out of the same two lines of chronology.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chinese pilgrim who has left an account of the Nalanda Mahavihara under the headship of Shilabhadra is

  • (a)Fa-Hien
  • (b)I-Tsing
  • (c)Hiuen Tsang
  • (d)Sung-Yun

  Answer(c) Hiuen Tsang — he studied at Nalanda under the aged Shilabhadra during his stay in India (c. 630–644 CE) and described the monastery in the Si-yu-ki. I-Tsing also lived at Nalanda but a generation later, and Fa-Hien passed through the region long before the Mahavihara reached that scale.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the correct chronological order of arrival in India?

  • (a)Fa-Hien → Megasthenes → Hiuen Tsang → Al-Biruni
  • (b)Megasthenes → Fa-Hien → Hiuen Tsang → Al-Biruni
  • (c)Megasthenes → Hiuen Tsang → Fa-Hien → Al-Biruni
  • (d)Fa-Hien → Hiuen Tsang → Megasthenes → Al-Biruni

  Answer(b) Megasthenes → Fa-Hien → Hiuen Tsang → Al-Biruni — Megasthenes at Chandragupta Maurya's court c. 302 BCE, Fa-Hien c. 405–411 CE, Hiuen Tsang c. 630–644 CE, and Al-Biruni with Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns, his Kitab-ul-Hind finished c. 1030 CE.