MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 15 of 100

Correct — option (1): (a)-(i), (b)-(ii), (c)-(iii), (d)-(iv), the straight-down mapping. The Maitrakas ruled from Valabhi in Saurashtra from the fifth century, after the Gupta hold on western India loosened; Valabhi is remembered less for its kings than for its schools, a centre of Buddhist and Jaina learning noticed by Chinese pilgrims and a rival in reputation to Nalanda. The Chahamanas, the Chauhans of later tradition, ruled from Sakambhari, the region around the Sambhar salt lake in eastern Rajasthan, before their power moved to Ajmer and eventually to Delhi under Prithviraja III. The Gurjaras of this list are the line established around Broach — Bharuch, on the Narmada estuary in southern Gujarat — and they must be kept distinct from the Gurjara-Pratiharas who ruled from Kannauj, a confusion the shared name invites and which is exactly what makes this pair examinable. The Paramaras ruled Malwa from Dhara, modern Dhar in western Madhya Pradesh, and their most celebrated ruler, Bhoja, is remembered as much for scholarship and building as for conquest. As so often in this format, one certain pair settles everything. The Maitrakas and Valabhi is the most secure association on the list, and only one of the four options contains it — the others send the Maitrakas to Dhara, to Broach and to Sakambhari respectively. Fix that pair and the question is answered without examining the remaining three. If you would rather use a different anchor, the Paramaras and Dhara work equally well, since again only option (1) carries that pair; and if you know only that the Chahamanas belong to Rajasthan, Sakambhari is the only Rajasthan place in the column.

• (2)(a) - (iv), (b) - (iii), (c) - (ii), (d) - (i) — The complete reversal of the correct mapping, first name to last place and so on back up the column. It sends the Maitrakas to Dhara in Malwa, the Chahamanas to Broach in Gujarat, the Gurjaras to Sakambhari in Rajasthan and the Paramaras to Valabhi in Saurashtra — every dynasty moved to another dynasty's region, and in three cases to a different part of India altogether. It fails on the geography before it fails on the history: the Chahamanas are the Rajasthan dynasty of this list, and placing them on the Narmada estuary would leave eastern Rajasthan without a ruling house in a question that has one for each region.
• (3)(a) - (iii), (b) - (iv), (c) - (ii), (d) - (i) — Wrong on all four pairs, and built to exploit the plausibility of a Gujarat dynasty sitting at a Gujarat port. It gives the Maitrakas Broach, which looks reasonable because both Valabhi and Broach lie in Gujarat, and then pushes the Chahamanas to Dhara, the Gurjaras to Sakambhari and the Paramaras to Valabhi. The check that exposes it is the Paramara pair: Malwa and its capital Dhara are one of the most firmly fixed dynasty-and-place associations of the early medieval period, tied to Bhoja's reputation, and no option that moves the Paramaras out of Malwa can survive.
• (4)(a) - (ii), (b) - (i), (c) - (iv), (d) - (iii) — A double swap: the Maitrakas and Chahamanas exchange places, and so do the Gurjaras and Paramaras. The result puts the Maitrakas in eastern Rajasthan, the Chahamanas in Saurashtra, the Gurjaras in Malwa and the Paramaras on the Narmada estuary. The Chahamana pair is the fastest kill for most candidates, because the Chauhans are the best-known of the four houses through Prithviraja and the tradition attached to him, and their heartland in Rajasthan is not seriously in doubt. Sorting the four places by region before reading any option — Saurashtra, eastern Rajasthan, southern Gujarat, Malwa — makes every wrong permutation here visible at a glance.

The centuries between the collapse of Harsha's kingdom in the middle of the seventh century and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate are organised around regional dynasties, and the syllabus expects each to be tied to a capital or a core region. In the west and north-west: the Maitrakas at Valabhi in Saurashtra; the Chahamanas at Sakambhari and later Ajmer; the Chaulukyas or Solankis of Gujarat at Anhilwara; the Paramaras of Malwa at Dhara; the Gurjaras of the Broach region on the Narmada; and the Gahadavalas at Kannauj. In central India, the Chandelas of Bundelkhand, whose temples at Khajuraho are the best-known survival of the period, and the Kalachuris at Tripuri. Overarching all of this in the ninth and tenth centuries is the tripartite struggle for control of Kannauj between the Gurjara-Pratiharas of the north, the Palas of Bengal and Bihar and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan — a contest that shaped the political map for two centuries and is the frame into which most of these dynasties fit. For a Maharashtra candidate the Deccan half of that map is equally examinable: the Rashtrakutas at Manyakheta, the Chalukyas of Badami and Kalyani, and the Yadavas of Devagiri.

This item is a geography test wearing a history costume, and reading it that way makes it fast. Before comparing options, place the four names in the right-hand column on a map: Valabhi in Saurashtra, Sakambhari around the Sambhar lake in eastern Rajasthan, Broach on the Narmada estuary in southern Gujarat, and Dhara in Malwa. Then place the four dynasties by region rather than by capital, which most candidates can do even when the capital escapes them. Every wrong option here moves at least one dynasty across a regional boundary, so the sort alone answers the question. The one genuine trap is the word Gurjara. It appears both in the name of this Broach-based line and in that of the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj, who are far more famous, and a candidate who reaches automatically for Kannauj will find no such place in the column and may then start doubting a pair that was right. Where a name is genuinely ambiguous, decide the item on the pairs that are not — here the Maitrakas and Valabhi, or the Paramaras and Dhara, each of which appears in only one option and settles the question on its own.

• The Maitrakas ruled from Valabhi in Saurashtra from the fifth century, after Gupta authority in western India weakened; Valabhi was a celebrated centre of Buddhist and Jaina learning, noted by Chinese pilgrims and compared in reputation with Nalanda.
• The Chahamanas, the Chauhans of later tradition, had their early seat at Sakambhari in the Sambhar region of eastern Rajasthan, and their power later moved to Ajmer and to Delhi under Prithviraja III.
• The Gurjaras of this list ruled around Broach — Bharuch, on the Narmada estuary in southern Gujarat — and must be distinguished from the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj, who were the major imperial power of northern India in the ninth century.
• The Paramaras ruled Malwa from Dhara, modern Dhar in western Madhya Pradesh; their best-known ruler, Bhoja, is remembered for scholarship and building as much as for war.
• The frame for all these regional houses is the tripartite struggle of the ninth and tenth centuries for control of Kannauj, contested between the Gurjara-Pratiharas of the north, the Palas of Bengal and Bihar and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan.

• Confusing the Gurjaras of the Broach region with the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj — the shared name is the deliberate difficulty in this item, and Kannauj does not appear in the column at all
• Matching by capital when you can match by region: place the four sites on a map first, and every wrong permutation here moves a dynasty across a regional boundary
• Assuming the tidy straight-down permutation must be a distractor because it looks too easy; here it happens to be correct, and the shape of an option is not evidence about its truth
• Forgetting that Valabhi's fame rests on its schools rather than its kings, which is why it appears in questions on learning centres as well as on dynasties

MPSC asks early medieval India as dynasty-and-capital matching, drawn from a stable list that includes at least one pair designed to be confused with a more famous namesake — the Gurjaras of Broach against the Gurjara-Pratiharas here. Expect the Deccan houses, especially the Rashtrakutas and the Yadavas of Devagiri, to appear in the same format because they are part of Maharashtra's own past. UPSC treats the period through culture and structure instead: temple styles, land grants and the debate about early medieval feudalism, or the significance of a named centre of learning. A candidate preparing both should carry the dynasty-capital-region table for MPSC and, for UPSC, one line per dynasty on what it built or endowed, since those are the hooks a national paper uses.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Valabhi, the seat of the Maitraka dynasty, is chiefly remembered in the sources of early India for which one of the following reasons ?

  • (a)It was a great centre of Buddhist and Jaina learning noticed by Chinese pilgrims
  • (b)It was the principal mint town of the Gupta empire in western India
  • (c)It was the port from which the Arab conquest of Sind was launched
  • (d)It was the capital of the Gurjara-Pratihara empire at its height

  Answer(a) It was a great centre of Buddhist and Jaina learning noticed by Chinese pilgrims — Valabhi in Saurashtra, the Maitraka capital, is remembered above all for its schools, and is often compared with Nalanda in accounts of the intellectual geography of early India. The Gurjara-Pratihara capital was Kannauj, and the Maitrakas rose as Gupta authority in the west receded rather than as Gupta mint officials.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Paramara dynasty, whose ruler Bhoja is remembered for scholarship and building as much as for warfare, ruled from which of the following capitals ?

  • (a)Anhilwara
  • (b)Tripuri
  • (c)Dhara
  • (d)Sakambhari

  Answer(c) Dhara — modern Dhar in western Madhya Pradesh, the Paramara capital in Malwa. Anhilwara was the seat of the Chaulukyas or Solankis of Gujarat, Tripuri of the Kalachuris, and Sakambhari of the Chahamanas of eastern Rajasthan, so all four are genuine early medieval capitals and the question turns on attaching each to the right house.