CDS (II) 2021 General Knowledge · Question 41 of 120

Correct — C, Samudragupta. The Prayaga Prashasti, better known as the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, is a Sanskrit eulogy composed by Harishena, the court poet of Samudragupta, in about the fourth century CE. It is the single most important source for that reign: it lists the kings of Aryavarta whom he uprooted, the rulers of Dakshinapatha whom he defeated and then reinstated, the forest kingdoms he reduced to servitude, and the frontier states and foreign powers that offered submission — and it does all this in the high poetic register of prashasti literature, praising the king as one without an antagonist on earth. Because prashastis are compositions in praise rather than reports, historians read them for the shape of a reign while discounting the flattery, and this inscription is the standard classroom example of that method.

• (a)Ashoka — The trap, and a good one. The same stone pillar at Allahabad also carries edicts of Ashoka, so a candidate who has seen a photograph of it may pair the pillar with the wrong king. The Ashokan text on it is a separate and much older inscription; the Prayaga Prashasti was cut on the same shaft centuries later.
• (b)Harshavardhana — Harshavardhana's court eulogist was Banabhatta, whose Harshacharita is a prose biography rather than a pillar inscription. Harsha ruled in the seventh century, three hundred years after this record was composed.
• (d)Bindusara — Bindusara was the second Mauryan emperor, father of Ashoka, and is known mainly from later literary and Greek references. No prashasti of his survives, and the Mauryas did not use the form.

A prashasti is a formal composition in praise of a patron, usually a king, carved on stone or copper. The Gupta period is the great age of the form, and the Prayaga Prashasti of Samudragupta is its most quoted example — a poem that doubles as the principal record of an empire's expansion.

Two habits make this item easy. First, keep each ruler tied to the writer who praised him — Harishena to Samudragupta, Banabhatta to Harsha, Ravikirti to Pulakeshin II in the Aihole inscription, Kalhana to the kings of Kashmir in a later and different genre. Second, remember that Prayaga is the older name of Allahabad, now Prayagraj, so Prayaga Prashasti and Allahabad Pillar Inscription are the same document under two labels — which is exactly the equivalence the question is testing. The Ashoka option is included because the pillar itself is Mauryan and was later reused, a reminder that a monument and the texts on it can belong to different centuries.

• The Prayaga Prashasti, also called the Allahabad Pillar Inscription, was composed in Sanskrit by Harishena, court poet of Samudragupta.
• Samudragupta ruled in about the fourth century CE and is generally reckoned the most powerful of the Gupta rulers.
• The inscription distinguishes the kings of Aryavarta, who were uprooted, from those of Dakshinapatha, who were defeated and restored.
• The pillar it is carved on is an Ashokan pillar, and carries Mauryan edicts as well.
• Prashastis are compositions in praise, so historians treat their factual content with caution while valuing their political geography.

• Attributing the whole pillar to whoever wrote the inscription you happen to know; the Allahabad pillar carries texts from two different empires.
• Treating a prashasti as a neutral record of conquests rather than as a poem written to praise.
• Mixing up Harishena the poet with the many other bearers of the name in Indian history.

As a direct source-to-ruler attribution, or as a matching list of inscriptions and the kings they praise.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Prayaga Prashasti was composed by

  • (a)Banabhatta
  • (b)Harishena
  • (c)Ravikirti
  • (d)Kalhana

  Answer(b) Harishena — court poet of Samudragupta; Banabhatta served Harsha, Ravikirti composed the Aihole inscription for Pulakeshin II, and Kalhana wrote the Rajatarangini.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Allahabad Pillar carries inscriptions of which of the following?

  • (a)Ashoka only
  • (b)Samudragupta only
  • (c)Both Ashoka and Samudragupta
  • (d)Neither Ashoka nor Samudragupta

  Answer(c) Both Ashoka and Samudragupta — a Mauryan pillar bearing Ashokan edicts on which Harishena's Gupta prashasti was later cut.