BPSC 70th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 54 of 143

Correct — B, Bhaskar Varman. Bhaskaravarman was the last and greatest ruler of the Varman dynasty of Kamarupa, the kingdom of ancient Assam that older texts call Pragjyotisha, and he was Harshavardhana's exact contemporary and closest ally. The alliance was a matter of strategic geometry: Harsha at Kanauj in the upper Ganga plain and Bhaskaravarman in the Brahmaputra valley had a common enemy in Shashanka of Gauda, who lay between them in Bengal, and the two squeezed him from either side. Two independent bodies of evidence tie the pair together. The first is literary — Banabhatta's Harshacharita, the court biography of Harsha, records the embassy Bhaskaravarman sent to him, and the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who travelled in India in the 630s and 640s, visited Bhaskaravarman's court in Kamarupa and then accompanied him to Harsha's great assemblies at Kanauj and Prayag. The second is epigraphic — Bhaskaravarman's own Nidhanpur copper plates, a grant of land recording his genealogy, were issued from his victorious camp at Karnasuvarna, Shashanka's capital in Bengal, which is direct evidence of how far his arms reached in Harsha's lifetime. The other names do not survive contact with a date. King Dahir was the Brahmin ruler of Sindh, at the opposite end of the subcontinent, and he was killed by the Arab commander Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 CE, some sixty-five years after Harsha's death around 647. 'Aswad Jahan' corresponds to no known ruler of Assam or of anywhere else in seventh-century India. With exactly one option correct, the inclusive fourth option has nothing to hold and fails.

• (a)Aswad Jahan — No ruler of this name is known in the history of Assam or of seventh-century India. The name is Persianate in form, which places it centuries too late for Harsha's reign in any case — a useful signal, since Kamarupa's dynasties in this period carry Sanskritic names ending in -varman.
• (c)King Dahir — A real ruler, but of Sindh and of the wrong century. Dahir was the Brahmin king defeated and killed by Muhammad bin Qasim in 712 CE, roughly sixty-five years after Harsha died. He is placed here to test whether you check both the region and the date rather than simply recognising the name.
• (d)More than one of the above — This option is correct only if at least two of the three named men ruled Assam during Harsha's reign, and only one did. Dahir ruled a different region a century later and Aswad Jahan is not a historical figure at all, so there is no second candidate for the inclusive option to gather up.

The seventh century in northern India is organised around Harshavardhana of the Pushyabhuti dynasty, who moved his capital from Thanesar to Kanauj and held together a loose paramountcy over the Ganga plain from about 606 to about 647 CE. Learning the period means learning his three principal contemporaries and how each relates to him. Shashanka of Gauda in Bengal was the enemy, held responsible in the sources for the killing of Harsha's brother Rajyavardhana. Pulakeshin II of the Chalukyas of Badami was the rival in the south, who checked Harsha's advance on the Narmada, an episode recorded both in the Aihole inscription and by Xuanzang. Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa was the ally in the east. The Kamarupa kingdom itself is worth placing: Pragjyotisha in the epics and the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta, ruled successively by the Varman, Mlechchha and Pala lines, with its heartland in the Brahmaputra valley of present-day Assam. Bhaskaravarman is where the Varman line ends, and after him the dynasty gives way to the Mlechchha rulers.

Questions of the form 'who ruled X at the time of Y' are decided by two filters applied in order, region and date, and applying only one of them is what costs the mark. Region alone removes Dahir, whose Sindh is at the far north-west of the subcontinent. Date alone also removes him, since 712 CE falls well after Harsha's death around 647. Applying both makes the elimination certain rather than a hunch. The third name, 'Aswad Jahan', can be handled by a naming test even if you have never seen it: rulers of Kamarupa in this period bear Sanskritic names, and the Varman line in particular ends every name in -varman, so a Persianate form belongs to a much later stratum of Indian history. As for the inclusive fourth option, the rule is the same wherever it appears on this paper — it is right only when you can positively name two options that both satisfy the stem, and here you cannot name even a second candidate. Once you have fixed Bhaskaravarman, tie him to the two sources that carry him, the Harshacharita and Xuanzang's travel account, because the exam asks about those sources as often as it asks about the ruler.

• Bhaskaravarman was the last ruler of the Varman dynasty of Kamarupa, the ancient kingdom of Assam known in earlier texts as Pragjyotisha, and a contemporary and ally of Harshavardhana
• The alliance was directed against Shashanka of Gauda in Bengal, who lay between Kanauj and the Brahmaputra valley
• Xuanzang, the Chinese pilgrim who travelled in India in the 630s and 640s, visited Bhaskaravarman's court and accompanied him to Harsha's assemblies at Kanauj and Prayag; Banabhatta's Harshacharita records his embassy to Harsha
• Bhaskaravarman's Nidhanpur copper plates were issued from his camp at Karnasuvarna, Shashanka's capital in Bengal — epigraphic evidence of the reach of Kamarupa in Harsha's lifetime
• King Dahir ruled Sindh and was killed in 712 CE by Muhammad bin Qasim, about sixty-five years after Harsha's death around 647 CE

• Recognising a name without checking its century — Dahir is real, but he belongs to 712 CE and to Sindh
• Assuming ancient Assam was outside the political mainstream; Kamarupa was an active partner in the politics of the Ganga valley
• Reaching for the inclusive fourth option because two names feel possible, instead of positively identifying two that satisfy the stem

BPSC asks this period as a single-fact identification — who ruled where, at whose court a traveller stayed, which region a named king held — and habitually places a real ruler from the wrong century among the options. UPSC asks the same period relationally: who stopped Harsha at the Narmada, what Xuanzang recorded about conditions in India, or which dynasties held northern India between the Guptas and Harsha.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Bhaskaravarman, the ally of Harshavardhana, belonged to which dynasty of Kamarupa ?

  • (a)Varman dynasty
  • (b)Mlechchha dynasty
  • (c)Pala dynasty of Kamarupa
  • (d)Ahom dynasty

  Answer(a) Varman dynasty — Bhaskaravarman was its last ruler; the Mlechchha and Pala lines of Kamarupa came after him, and the Ahoms arrived in Assam only in the thirteenth century.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The ruler of Gauda against whom Harshavardhana and Bhaskaravarman allied was

  • (a)Shashanka
  • (b)Gopala
  • (c)Dharmapala
  • (d)Devapala

  Answer(a) Shashanka — the ruler of Gauda in Bengal, held responsible in the sources for the death of Harsha's brother Rajyavardhana; Gopala, Dharmapala and Devapala are Pala kings of a later era.