The famous Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela mentions that in the eleventh year of his reign, Kharavela destroyed a confederacy of Tamil States, "Tramiradesa Sanghatam", which had long been a source of danger. How old was this confederacy of Tamil States at that time?
- (a)110 years old
- (b)111 years old
- (c)112 years old
- (d)113 years old
Correct — D, 113 years old. The Hathigumpha inscription is a first-person record of Kharavela's reign, set out year by year, and the entry for the eleventh year is the one this question quotes. The standard translation of that passage reads that he thoroughly breaks up the confederacy of the Tramira, or Dramira, countries of one hundred and thirteen years, which has been a source of danger to his country. The number is therefore given in the inscription itself, not inferred by historians, and 113 is the figure. That single line is also one of the earliest references anywhere to an organised league of Tamil states, which is why it matters far beyond Kharavela's own reign — it tells us that a confederacy in the far south was old enough, by his time, to have lasted over a century and to be worth boasting of destroying.
- (a)110 years old — A rounded-down near-miss. The inscription is specific, and specificity is the point of a regnal-year record of this kind.
- (b)111 years old — Close, but not the figure the inscription gives. Options of this shape are designed so that a candidate who half-remembers 'a bit over a hundred' cannot get there by feel.
- (c)112 years old — The nearest wrong answer of all, and the one a candidate who mis-recalls by a single digit will pick. The text says one hundred and thirteen.
The Hathigumpha inscription is cut into the Elephant Cave in the Udayagiri hills near Bhubaneswar in Odisha. It runs to seventeen lines in Prakrit, written in the Brahmi script, and is the principal source for Kharavela, a Jaina king of the Mahameghavahana line who ruled Kalinga. It narrates his reign in regnal years — public works and repairs in one year, campaigns in another, patronage of Jaina ascetics in another — and is therefore one of the few Indian inscriptions that reads almost as an annual chronicle.
Numerical items from inscriptions look unfair but are usually the most memorable facts in the whole topic, because the number is stated in the text and is quoted in every account of it. The way to hold this one is to attach it to the object rather than to the reign: the Tramiradesa Sanghatam, the confederacy of the Tamil countries, was 113 years old when Kharavela broke it in his eleventh year. Note what the phrase does and does not tell us. It dates the age of the confederacy, not the date of Kharavela himself, whose absolute chronology is still argued over — estimates for his reign range across the second and first centuries BCE, and the inscription's own dating formula has been read in more than one way.
- The Hathigumpha inscription is in the Udayagiri hills near Bhubaneswar, Odisha, in seventeen lines of Prakrit in the Brahmi script.
- It records the reign of Kharavela of the Mahameghavahana dynasty of Kalinga, a patron of Jainism.
- The eleventh-year passage states that he broke up the confederacy of the Tramira countries, which was one hundred and thirteen years old.
- The inscription is arranged by regnal year, which makes it unusually chronicle-like among Indian epigraphs.
- Kharavela's absolute dates remain disputed, with proposals spread across the second and first centuries BCE.
- Reading 113 as a date rather than as the age of the confederacy.
- Placing Kharavela's inscription in Andhra Pradesh or Bihar. It is in Odisha, the ancient Kalinga.
- Assuming a precise number in the text means the reign itself is precisely dated. Kharavela's absolute chronology is still contested.
As a numerical detail drawn from a named inscription, or as a question on where the Hathigumpha inscription is and whose reign it records.
Assertion (A): Ashoka annexed Kalinga to the Mauryan Empire. Reason (R): Kalinga controlled the land and sea routes to South India.
- (a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
- (b) Both A and R are true, but R is not a correct explanation of A
- (c) A is true, but R is false
- (d) A is false, but R is true
Answer(a) Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
The same country two centuries earlier, and the same strategic logic. Kalinga's command of the routes south is precisely why its rulers, Mauryan and Mahameghavahana alike, kept an eye on what was happening in the Tamil lands.
CDS_GK_2022_I_Q832022Consider the following statements about Ashoka's faith in Buddhism: 1. Rummindei Pillar Inscription and Nigali Sagar Pillar Inscription provide clear evidence of Ashoka's faith in Buddhism. 2. Minor Rock Edict-I gives evidence of a sudden change in Ashoka's faith in Buddhism. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(a) 1 only
The same skill — reading a king's own inscriptions as the evidence for his reign and his allegiances. CDS asks it of Ashoka's edicts there and of Kharavela's regnal record here.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Hathigumpha inscription is located in which present-day state?
- (a)Bihar
- (b)Odisha
- (c)Andhra Pradesh
- (d)Madhya Pradesh
Answer(b) Odisha — cut into the Elephant Cave in the Udayagiri hills near Bhubaneswar, in ancient Kalinga.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Kharavela, whose reign the Hathigumpha inscription records, was a patron of which religion?
- (a)Buddhism
- (b)Jainism
- (c)The Ajivika sect
- (d)Vaishnavism
Answer(b) Jainism — the inscription records his patronage of Jaina ascetics, and the Udayagiri and Khandagiri caves are Jaina monuments.