EPFO APFC 2023 General Studies · Question 65 of 120

Correct — C, (c) Brahmapala. The Pala dynasty of Kamarupa, the third of the great ruling houses of ancient Assam, held power from about 900 to about 1100, and its founder Brahmapala is remembered as having come to the throne by election rather than by inheritance, after the earlier Mlechchha or Salastambha line had failed. He is dated to roughly 900 to 920, and the line that followed him ran through Ratnapala, Indrapala, Gopala, Harshapala, Dharmapala and finally Jayapala, ending around 1100. What makes this a harder question than it looks is that three of the four options are kings of this very dynasty, so the candidate cannot answer by identifying which name belongs to Kamarupa; the ask is specifically for the first of them, and the word elected is the clue that fixes the moment of foundation. The election also explains an ambiguity worth noticing. The most famous elected Pala in Indian history is not Brahmapala at all but Gopala of Bengal, chosen by the chiefs in the middle of the eighth century to end the condition of anarchy that the Khalimpur copper plate of his son Dharmapala describes as matsyanyaya, the law of the fishes, in which the strong devour the weak. Two separate dynasties called Pala, in two adjacent regions, each beginning with an election, is a genuine coincidence of Indian history and a standing source of confusion. Kamarupa's Palas are the later of the two, they ruled from the Brahmaputra valley rather than from Bengal and Bihar, and their founder is Brahmapala. Ratnapala, his son and successor, is credited with establishing a new capital named Durjaya in the neighbourhood of modern Guwahati, and it is under him and Indrapala that the dynasty's inscriptions become most numerous.

• (a)Govindapala — Govindapala is the odd one out in this option set: he is the only one of the four who does not belong to the Kamarupa line at all. He is the last ruler known from the Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar, dated to about 1162, and inscriptions from the Gaya region count years from what they describe as the destruction of his kingdom, which is how historians place the collapse of Bengal's Pala power just before the Sena ascendancy and the Turkish conquest. He is thus separated from Brahmapala by more than two centuries and by several hundred kilometres, and he stands at the end of his dynasty rather than at its beginning. The option is there for the candidate who has learned the Bengal Palas and reaches for a Bengal name; the question is about Kamarupa, and the two houses must be kept apart.
• (b)Dharmapala — This is the sharpest distractor in the set, because the name is right for both dynasties and wrong for both positions. There is a Dharmapala among the Kamarupa Palas, dated to roughly 1035 to 1060, but he is the sixth ruler of the line and not its founder. There is also a far more famous Dharmapala among the Bengal Palas, ruling around 770 to 810, the son of the elected Gopala; he was a principal in the tripartite struggle with the Gurjara-Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas over Kanauj, where he installed his nominee Chakrayudha, and he is remembered as the founder of the Vikramashila monastery and of the great vihara at Somapura. Neither Dharmapala is the first elected king of Kamarupa. When one name occurs in two dynasties, answer by position in the succession rather than by recognition of the name.
• (d)Jayapala — Jayapala does belong to the Kamarupa Palas, but he closes the line rather than opening it: he is the last of its kings, ruling to about 1100, after which Kamarupa passed out of Pala hands. Picking him is the mirror image of the intended error, choosing the end of a dynasty when the question asks for its beginning. The name carries a second confusion as well, since the best-known Jayapala in Indian history is the Hindu Shahi ruler of the north-west who fought Sabuktigin and Mahmud of Ghazni at the end of the tenth century — a different dynasty, a different region and a different religion of kingship altogether. Two safeguards apply here. Read the ask for its position word, in this case first, and check that the ruler you are naming is placed at that end of the succession, not merely inside it.

Ancient Assam is studied as the kingdom of Kamarupa, and its history is organised around three dynasties. The Varmans, beginning with Pushyavarman in about the middle of the fourth century, are the earliest, and their greatest king is Bhaskaravarman, the ally of Harshavardhana whom the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited and described. The Mlechchha or Salastambha line follows from the middle of the seventh century, ruling from Haruppeshvara on the Brahmaputra. The Palas of Kamarupa are the third and last, from about 900 to about 1100, founded by Brahmapala, who is said to have been raised to the throne by election rather than by descent. Their inscriptions, mostly copper plates recording land grants, are the principal source for the period, and they show a settled agrarian kingdom with brahmadeya grants, an established bureaucracy and a court culture continuous with that of eastern India. Ratnapala, the second king, is credited with founding a new capital called Durjaya near modern Guwahati. The dynasty is entirely distinct from the better-known Palas of Bengal and Bihar, whose founder Gopala was also elected, whose kings patronised Nalanda, Vikramashila and Odantapuri, and who were the great royal patrons of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Sharing a dynastic name and a founding election, the two houses are constantly confused, and a question of this kind exists mainly to test whether the candidate keeps them apart.

The paper's ancient and medieval block reaches beyond the standard north Indian narrative into regional dynasties, and this item is a clear instance: it asks about a ruling house of the Brahmaputra valley that most general-studies preparation covers in a sentence or not at all. The design of the option set is what makes it answerable. Three of the four names are kings of the Kamarupa Palas and one is a Bengal Pala, so a candidate who knows only that the dynasty existed cannot narrow the field by region; the discriminating word is elected, which marks the beginning of a line. That is the transferable lesson. Position words in a stem — first, last, founder, successor — do more work than the proper nouns around them, because they convert a question about a whole dynasty into a question about one end of it. The second lesson concerns duplicated names across dynasties, which are extremely common in early medieval India, where the same suffix runs through a whole royal family. Dharmapala, Gopala and Jayapala each name more than one historical person, and the only reliable way through such an option set is to hold the succession order of the relevant line rather than a loose association between a name and a period.

• The Pala dynasty of Kamarupa ruled from about 900 to about 1100 and was founded by Brahmapala, who is remembered as having been elected to the throne rather than inheriting it, after the end of the Mlechchha or Salastambha line.
• The succession of the Kamarupa Palas runs Brahmapala, Ratnapala, Indrapala, Gopala, Harshapala, Dharmapala and Jayapala; three of this paper's four options — Brahmapala, Dharmapala and Jayapala — are kings of this line.
• Ratnapala, the second king, is credited with founding a new capital named Durjaya in the neighbourhood of modern Guwahati, and the dynasty's copper-plate land grants are the main source for the period.
• The Palas of Kamarupa are entirely distinct from the Palas of Bengal and Bihar, whose founder Gopala was elected by the chiefs in the eighth century to end the anarchy that the Khalimpur copper plate calls matsyanyaya, the law of the fishes.
• Govindapala is the last known ruler of the Bengal Pala line, dated to about 1162, and records from the Gaya region reckon years from the destruction of his kingdom.
• Ancient Assam's three dynasties are the Varmans from about the fourth century, whose greatest king Bhaskaravarman was Harshavardhana's ally and was described by Xuanzang; the Mlechchha or Salastambha line from the seventh century, ruling from Haruppeshvara; and the Palas from about 900.

• Answering with Gopala or another Bengal Pala because the phrase elected king recalls the founding of the Bengal line; both dynasties began with an election, and the question names Kamarupa
• Choosing Dharmapala on the strength of the famous Bengal ruler of that name; there is also a Kamarupa Dharmapala, but he is sixth in the succession, not first
• Choosing Jayapala, who does belong to the Kamarupa Palas but closes the line around 1100 rather than opening it
• Confusing the Kamarupa Jayapala with the Hindu Shahi Jayapala of the north-west who fought Sabuktigin and Mahmud of Ghazni; the shared name spans two unrelated dynasties
• Treating Kamarupa's history as beginning with the Ahoms; the Ahom kingdom arises only in the thirteenth century, long after the Varman, Salastambha and Pala dynasties

Regional dynasties are asked in this paper as single-fact identifications — the founder of a line, its capital, its last ruler, or the king a named traveller or text is associated with — and the north-east is represented mainly through Kamarupa. The option sets are typically built from names inside the same dynasty, or from names shared with a better-known dynasty elsewhere, which is why loose recognition fails and the order of succession is what actually answers the question. The most economical preparation is to hold, for each regional house, its founder, its most famous ruler and its last ruler, since a question can be built on any of the three and the position word in the stem tells you which is wanted. Expect the same treatment of the Ahoms, the Chero and Chutiya kingdoms, the Gangas and Gajapatis of Odisha and the Yadavas and Kakatiyas of the Deccan.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The founder of the Pala dynasty of Bengal, who according to tradition was elected by the chiefs to end the anarchy described as matsyanyaya, was

  • (a)Gopala
  • (b)Devapala
  • (c)Mahipala I
  • (d)Ramapala

  Answer(a) Gopala — the Khalimpur copper plate of his son Dharmapala records that the people made him take the hand of fortune to end the condition of matsyanyaya, the law of the fishes in which the strong devour the weak, and his election in the middle of the eighth century marks the beginning of Pala rule in Bengal and Bihar. Devapala was Dharmapala's son and the dynasty's most expansive ruler, Mahipala I is associated with its later revival, and Ramapala is the subject of the Ramacharitam of Sandhyakara Nandi.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited the court of which one of the following rulers of Kamarupa, an ally of Harshavardhana?

  • (a)Bhaskaravarman
  • (b)Pushyavarman
  • (c)Brahmapala
  • (d)Salastambha

  Answer(a) Bhaskaravarman — the greatest king of the Varman dynasty of Kamarupa, he allied with Harshavardhana of Kanauj and received Xuanzang at his court, and his Nidhanpur copper plates are an important source for the period. Pushyavarman founded the Varman line in about the fourth century, Salastambha began the Mlechchha dynasty in the seventh, and Brahmapala founded the Kamarupa Pala dynasty in about 900, well after Xuanzang's travels.