Which of the following pairs are correctly matched? (Inscription/Event) (Time Period) 1. Prayag Prashasti by Harisena – 4th century CE 2. Chinese traveller Fa Xian's Account – 6th century CE 3. Mudrarakshasa of Vishakhadatta – 5th century CE 4. Harshacharita of Banabhatta – 6th century CE 5. Aihole Prashasti of Ravikirti – 7th century CE 6. Kavirajamarga of Amoghavarsha – 8th century CE Select the correct answer using the code given below:

Correct — D, 1, 3 and 5 only. Take the six pairs one at a time. Harishena composed the Prayag Prashasti for Samudragupta, whose reign falls in the middle of the fourth century, so pair 1 holds. Faxian entered India in the reign of Chandragupta II and travelled here from about 399 to 414 CE, which makes his account a fifth-century document and puts pair 2 out by a full century. Vishakhadatta's Mudrarakshasa dramatises Chanakya's manoeuvring at the Mauryan court but was written long after the events it stages; the usual assignment is the Gupta age, and the paper's fifth century is that conventional date, so pair 3 stands. Banabhatta was the court poet of Harsha, who ruled from 606 to 647, so the Harshacharita is seventh-century work and pair 4 sinks. Ravikirti dated the Aihole Prashasti himself, in Saka 556, which is 634-635 CE and squarely in the seventh century, so pair 5 holds. Kavirajamarga belongs to the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha I and is placed at about 850 CE, the ninth century, so pair 6 fails. Three pairs survive, and they are 1, 3 and 5.

• (a)1, 2 and 3 only — Pairs 1 and 3 are sound, but pair 2 is not. Faxian's travels belong to the reign of Chandragupta II, roughly 399 to 414 CE — the early fifth century, not the sixth. The pilgrim the paper is nudging you towards for the sixth or seventh century is Xuanzang, who came in Harsha's time.
• (b)2, 3 and 4 only — This set collects both of the misdated pairs at once. Faxian is a century too late in pair 2, and Banabhatta wrote the Harshacharita for a king who came to the throne in 606, so pair 4 is a century too early.
• (c)4, 5 and 6 only — Only pair 5 in this set is right. The Harshacharita is seventh-century, not sixth, and Kavirajamarga is a work of about 850 CE — the ninth century — so calling it eighth-century misses by a hundred years.

A prashasti is a eulogy cut in stone or copper for a ruler, and because it names its own composer and often its own date it is the firmest dating anchor ancient Indian history has. The Prayag Prashasti on the Allahabad pillar praises Samudragupta and names Harishena as its author. The Aihole Prashasti praises the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II, names the Jain poet Ravikirti, and carries an explicit year in the Saka era. Literary works are harder: a play or a biography is dated by the patron it was written for, which is why the Harshacharita moves with Harsha and Kavirajamarga with Amoghavarsha I.

The item is built so that two pairs carry the whole question. If you know that Faxian belongs with Chandragupta II in the early fifth century, options (a) and (b) both die. If you also know that Bana wrote for Harsha and so belongs in the seventh century, (b) dies again and (c) with it. Nothing is left but (d), and you never have to settle the awkward one. The awkward one is pair 3: the date of the Mudrarakshasa is genuinely contested, with proposals running from the fourth century to the eighth, and the paper simply takes the common Gupta-period assignment. That is worth knowing rather than resenting — an exam pair asserting a debated date is usually being used as filler, and the pairs you can date hard are the ones meant to decide the answer.

• The Prayag Prashasti is cut on an Ashokan pillar now in Allahabad Fort, so one shaft carries a Mauryan edict and a Gupta eulogy together.
• The Aihole Prashasti dates itself twice over — by years elapsed since the Bharata war and by Saka 556, which converts to 634-635 CE.
• Ravikirti's inscription claims Pulakeshin II defeated Harsha; Xuanzang, writing independently, describes the same clash on the Narmada.
• Kavirajamarga, about 850 CE, is the earliest surviving work on poetics and grammar in Kannada, and Srivijaya may have written part of it.
• Faxian left China in 399 and returned by sea in 414; Xuanzang came two centuries later, in Harsha's reign, and I-Tsing later still.

• Dating the Mudrarakshasa by the events it depicts rather than by when it was written — the play is about Mauryan politics but is centuries younger.
• Sliding Faxian and Xuanzang into each other; one belongs with Chandragupta II, the other with Harsha.
• Treating a pair as wrong because its date is debated. Pairs the exam can date hard are the ones that decide the answer.

Asked as a pairs item where two deliberately misdated entries knock out three options, so the marks go to whoever can date two names rather than all six.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Aihole Prashasti was composed by Ravikirti in praise of which ruler?

  • (a)Harshavardhana
  • (b)Pulakeshin II
  • (c)Samudragupta
  • (d)Amoghavarsha I

  Answer(b) Pulakeshin II — Ravikirti was a Jain poet at the Chalukya court, and his inscription of Saka 556 claims his patron turned back Harsha's southward march.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following works is the earliest surviving treatise on poetics in the Kannada language?

  • (a)Harshacharita
  • (b)Mudrarakshasa
  • (c)Kavirajamarga
  • (d)Gaudavaho

  Answer(c) Kavirajamarga — dated to about 850 CE and associated with the Rashtrakuta king Amoghavarsha I.