Consider the following pairs: (Historical Place) — (Well-known for) I. Girnar : Sudarshana Lake II. Cholistan : Terracotta model of Plough III. Mant (near Mathura): Headless standing figure of Kanishka IV. Sannati : Asokan Pillar Edict in Odisha How many pairs given above is/are correctly matched?

Correct — C, 3. Three of the four pairs hold and the fourth fails. Girnar in Gujarat is where the Sudarshana lake stood, an artificial reservoir first built under the Mauryas and known from the rock inscription of about the second century CE in which the Shaka ruler Rudradaman records repairing it at his own expense and without forced labour — the same rock carries a set of Ashoka's major rock edicts. Cholistan, the desert tract along the dried Hakra in Pakistan, is one of the two places that have yielded terracotta models of the plough, Banawali in Haryana being the other; those models are the standard evidence for how Harappan fields were worked. Mant, more usually spelt Mat, near Mathura is where a shrine held colossal statues of Kushana rulers, and the best known of them is the standing figure of Kanishka, inscribed with his name and titles but surviving without its head — the object most textbooks use to illustrate how the Kushanas presented themselves. The fourth pair is wrong on both halves: Sannati is a village in Kalaburagi district of Karnataka, on the Bhima river, and the Ashokan material recovered there from 1986 onwards consists of rock edicts on stone slabs, in Prakrit and Brahmi, which had been reused in the floor and foundation of a temple.

• (a)1 — Far too few. Only the Sannati pair fails, and the other three are all standard textbook associations.
• (b)2 — The likely trap for a candidate who doubts the plough models or the Kanishka statue. Both are secure: the models come from Cholistan and Banawali, and the headless standing Kanishka is the celebrated find from the shrine at Mat near Mathura.
• (d)4 — Accepts the Sannati pair, which cannot stand. Sannati is in Karnataka, not Odisha, and what was found there are rock edicts rather than a pillar edict — Ashoka's pillar edicts belong mainly to the Gangetic plain, and Odisha's Ashokan sites are Dhauli and Jaugada, which carry rock edicts including the two separate Kalinga edicts.

Ashokan inscriptions fall into families that are worth keeping apart. Major rock edicts appear on natural rock faces around the edges of the empire — Girnar, Dhauli, Jaugada, Kalsi, Shahbazgarhi, Sopara, Yerragudi and, since 1986, Sannati. Minor rock edicts cluster in Karnataka and the Deccan, at Maski, Brahmagiri, Gavimath and others, and Maski and Gujarra are the ones that name Ashoka himself. Pillar edicts stand on polished sandstone columns quarried at Chunar and are found largely in the Gangetic plain, at Lauriya Nandangarh, Lauriya Araraj, Rampurwa, Topra and Meerut. Confusing rock with pillar is one of the commonest errors in this part of the syllabus, and this question is built on it.

In a how-many-pairs item the profitable move is to look for the pair that is wrong rather than to verify each in turn, and here the fourth advertises itself: it names a place in one region and an object in another. Sannati sits among the Deccan inscription sites, which is where Ashokan material in Karnataka belongs; Odisha's Ashokan record is at Dhauli and Jaugada, and both are rock edicts. Two other habits help. First, treat Girnar as a double anchor — it carries Ashoka's major rock edicts and Rudradaman's inscription about the Sudarshana lake, and later a Gupta-period inscription about repairing it again, so three periods meet on one rock. Second, notice that this item mixes a Harappan find, a Mauryan and Shaka site, and a Kushana sculpture, which is a reminder that pairs questions in ancient history rarely stay inside one period.

• The Sudarshana lake at Girnar in Gujarat was an artificial reservoir; Rudradaman's rock inscription of about the second century CE, in Sanskrit, records its repair, and the same rock carries Ashoka's major rock edicts.
• Terracotta models of the plough have been found at sites in Cholistan and at Banawali in Haryana.
• Colossal statues of Kushana rulers stood in a shrine at Mat near Mathura; the standing Kanishka survives headless and is now in the Government Museum, Mathura.
• Kushana rulers took the title devaputra, son of god, and the Mat statues are read as evidence that they projected themselves as godlike.
• Sannati, in Kalaburagi district of Karnataka, yielded Ashokan rock edicts in Prakrit and Brahmi from 1986, found reused in the floor and foundation of a temple; Odisha's Ashokan sites are Dhauli and Jaugada.

• Treating any Ashokan inscription as a pillar edict; most of the edicts outside the Gangetic plain are cut into rock.
• Placing Sannati in Odisha because the question offers it that way — it is in Karnataka, and Odisha's sites are Dhauli and Jaugada.
• Attributing the Sudarshana lake to Rudradaman's construction; it was built earlier, under the Mauryas, and he records repairing it.

As a how-many-pairs item like this one, as a site-to-find match, or as a single-line question on who repaired the Sudarshana lake or where the Kushana statues were found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The rock inscription at Girnar recording the repair of the Sudarshana lake was composed in the name of which ruler?

  • (a)Ashoka
  • (b)Rudradaman
  • (c)Kanishka
  • (d)Samudragupta

  Answer(b) Rudradaman — the Shaka ruler's Sanskrit inscription of about the second century CE records the repair of the lake, on a rock that also carries Ashoka's major rock edicts.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sannati, where Ashokan edicts were discovered in 1986, is located in which State?

  • (a)Odisha
  • (b)Andhra Pradesh
  • (c)Karnataka
  • (d)Maharashtra

  Answer(c) Karnataka — Sannati lies in Kalaburagi district, and the edicts found there are rock edicts, recovered from the floor and foundation of a temple.