CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 39 of 120

Correct — C, Narmada. Mahishmati stood on the Narmada, and its site is generally identified with Maheshwar in Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh, on the north bank of the river. Its importance is that the Avanti mahajanapada was a divided kingdom: the northern half had its capital at Ujjayini on the Shipra, the southern half at Mahishmati on the Narmada. The city recurs across the whole span of early Indian tradition. The Puranas and the Mahabharata make it the seat of the Haihaya king Kartavirya Arjuna; it later gave its name to a district of the Anupa country; and in the sixth century CE the Kalachuris ruled from it. The single fact worth carrying is the pairing — Avanti, two capitals, Ujjayini north and Mahishmati south, and the Narmada as the southern anchor.

• (a)Sarayu — The Sarayu is Kosala's river and Ayodhya's, in what is now eastern Uttar Pradesh — a different mahajanapada in a different river system nearly a thousand kilometres away.
• (b)Son — The Son rises in the same Amarkantak highlands as the Narmada but runs the other way, north-east into the Ganga near Patna. It carries no ancient capital of this rank, which is what makes it a plausible-looking filler in a question about central Indian rivers.
• (d)Godavari — The Godavari has its own famous ancient city — Pratishthana, modern Paithan, the Satavahana capital in Maharashtra. Confusing the two is the real risk here, because both are peninsular capitals on great westward or eastward rivers, but Mahishmati belongs to the Narmada and to Avanti, not to the Deccan of the Satavahanas.

The sixteen mahajanapadas of the sixth century BCE are usually learnt as a list of names, but the examiners test them as a map, and the map is drawn by rivers. Magadha sits on the Ganga with Rajagriha and later Pataliputra; Kosala on the Sarayu with Ayodhya and Shravasti; Vatsa on the Yamuna with Kaushambi; Ashmaka on the Godavari; and Avanti astride the Narmada-Malwa country with two capitals, Ujjayini and Mahishmati. Avanti was one of the four great powers that contended for supremacy in that century, along with Magadha, Kosala and Vatsa, and it was eventually absorbed by Magadha.

This is a place-to-river item and it rewards a habit rather than a memory — attach every ancient city you learn to its river the first time you meet it, because that is the form in which it will be asked. The options here are chosen so that each is a real river with real historical weight, and the discrimination is geographical: the Sarayu is a northern Gangetic tributary, the Son a northward-flowing Gangetic tributary, the Godavari a peninsular river of the Deccan, and the Narmada the central Indian river that runs west into the Arabian Sea through the rift between the Vindhyas and the Satpuras. Since Mahishmati is Avanti's southern capital, and Avanti is the Malwa and Narmada country, the answer follows from the geography even without the site identification. UPSC tested the same association three years later by offering the false pair 'Avanti : Mahanadi', which is worth remembering as the standard trap.

• Mahishmati stood on the Narmada and is generally identified with Maheshwar in Khargone district, Madhya Pradesh.
• Avanti had two capitals — Ujjayini in the north on the Shipra, and Mahishmati in the south on the Narmada.
• In the Puranas and the Mahabharata, Mahishmati is the seat of the Haihaya king Kartavirya Arjuna.
• The Kalachuris ruled from Mahishmati in the sixth century CE.
• The Narmada rises at Amarkantak and flows west into the Gulf of Khambhat through the rift valley between the Vindhya and Satpura ranges.
• Pratishthana, modern Paithan on the Godavari, was the Satavahana capital — the other peninsular capital that gets confused with this one.

• Pairing Avanti with the Mahanadi, which is the false match UPSC used in 2025.
• Confusing Mahishmati on the Narmada with Pratishthana on the Godavari.
• Forgetting that Avanti had two capitals and answering only with Ujjayini.

As a city-to-river pairing, or inside a larger match list of mahajanapadas, capitals and rivers.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Ujjayini, the northern capital of the Avanti mahajanapada, stood on the banks of which river?

  • (a)Shipra
  • (b)Narmada
  • (c)Chambal
  • (d)Betwa

  Answer(a) Shipra — Ujjayini in the north on the Shipra, Mahishmati in the south on the Narmada.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Pratishthana, the capital of the Satavahanas, stood on the banks of which river?

  • (a)Krishna
  • (b)Godavari
  • (c)Tapi
  • (d)Bhima

  Answer(b) Godavari — Pratishthana is modern Paithan in Maharashtra, on the Godavari.