CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 33 of 120

Correct — D, Krishna and Tungabhadra. Both places named in the question sit on the northern Karnataka stretch of the Deccan plateau, and the two rivers that cross the ground between them are the Krishna and its largest right-bank tributary, the Tungabhadra. Gulbarga, now Kalaburagi, lies in the upper part of that belt; the district's two main rivers are the Krishna and the Bhima, which is itself a tributary of the Krishna. Travel south from there and you cross the Krishna, then run down to the Tungabhadra, on whose south bank the ruined capital of Vijayanagara stands at Hampi. The geography is also the history. The wedge of land between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra is the Raichur doab, and control of that doab is what Vijayanagara and the Bahmani sultans — whose first capital was Gulbarga — fought over for the better part of two centuries. The question is really asking whether you can place that doab. Every other option is drawn from a different part of India altogether.

• (a)Narmada and Godavari — Both lie well north of this ground. The Narmada runs west through central India to the Arabian Sea and the Godavari crosses the northern Deccan; neither comes near the Gulbarga-Hampi corridor.
• (b)Mahanadi and Godavari — The Mahanadi belongs to Chhattisgarh and Odisha, on the other side of the peninsula. Pairing it with the Godavari puts the answer in eastern India.
• (c)Kaveri and Periyar — The far south. The Kaveri drains southern Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and the Periyar is a Kerala river; both are south of the Tungabhadra basin the question is about.

The Krishna rises in the Western Ghats near Mahabaleshwar and flows east across the Deccan to the Bay of Bengal. Its major tributaries include the Bhima from the north and the Tungabhadra from the south, the Tungabhadra being formed by the union of the Tunga and the Bhadra in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. The land enclosed between the lower Krishna and the Tungabhadra is the Raichur doab, some of the most fought-over country in medieval South India.

River-and-place questions reward a rough mental map far more than a list. Anchor two things here — Hampi stands on the Tungabhadra, and Kalaburagi district is drained by the Krishna and the Bhima — and the corridor between them writes itself. Even without that, elimination works: the three wrong options between them name rivers of central India, eastern India and the far south, and none of those systems touches northern Karnataka. It is worth knowing that the same two rivers explain why Vijayanagara was sited where it was. A capital on the south bank of the Tungabhadra had a wide river as its northern moat against the Bahmani sultanate, whose own first capital, Gulbarga, is the other place this question names.

• Hampi, the site of the Vijayanagara capital, stands on the Tungabhadra in eastern-central Karnataka.
• The Krishna and the Bhima are the two main rivers of Kalaburagi (Gulbarga) district, which lies entirely on the Deccan plateau at about 300 to 750 metres above sea level.
• The Tungabhadra is a major right-bank tributary of the Krishna, formed by the meeting of the Tunga and the Bhadra.
• The tract between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra is the Raichur doab, contested for centuries between Vijayanagara and the Bahmani sultanate.
• Gulbarga was the first capital of the Bahmani sultanate before it moved to Bidar.

• Pairing Hampi with the Malaprabha, a distractor UPSC has used; Hampi is on the Tungabhadra.
• Assuming the Tungabhadra is an independent river reaching the sea; it joins the Krishna.
• Mixing the Bhima and the Tungabhadra — the first joins the Krishna from the north, the second from the south.

As a place-to-river pairing, as a which-rivers-flow-here item, or inside a history question about the Vijayanagara-Bahmani frontier.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Tungabhadra river is formed by the confluence of which two rivers?

  • (a)Tunga and Bhadra
  • (b)Bhima and Ghataprabha
  • (c)Malaprabha and Ghataprabha
  • (d)Hagari and Vedavathi

  Answer(a) Tunga and Bhadra — both rise in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, and the combined river later joins the Krishna.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Gulbarga, now Kalaburagi, was the first capital of which one of the following states?

  • (a)Vijayanagara Empire
  • (b)Bahmani Sultanate
  • (c)Kakatiya Kingdom
  • (d)Hoysala Kingdom

  Answer(b) Bahmani Sultanate — its capital was later moved to Bidar, and its long contest with Vijayanagara was fought over the Raichur doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra.