Which of the following great ruler founded the “Haryak Vansh” in ancient Bihar ?

Question

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Correct — A, Bimbisara. The Haryanka dynasty is the line that turned Magadha from one mahajanapada among sixteen into the dominant power of the Gangetic plain, and Bimbisara, who ruled from about 544 to 492 BCE, is conventionally named as its founder. He ruled from Girivraja, called Rajagaha in the Pali texts and Rajgir today, in Nalanda district of Bihar — an old town enclosed by five hills and a cyclopean wall of undressed stone laid without mortar. Three things define his reign and all three are testable. First, expansion by conquest: he annexed Anga, with its capital Champa near modern Bhagalpur, which gave Magadha control of the trade route down the Ganga towards the sea. Second, expansion by marriage: he took Kosaladevi, sister of Prasenajit of Kosala, who brought a Kashi village as dowry; Chellana of the Lichchhavis of Vaishali; and Khema, a princess of the Madra clan of the Punjab — a deliberate diplomatic net around a young kingdom. Third, religious patronage: he was a contemporary of both the Buddha and Mahavira, and the Buddhist canon records his gift of the Veluvana bamboo grove to the Sangha. The dynasty he founded ran through Ajatashatru and Udayin to Nagadasaka, whom the Shishunagas displaced. The tradition is not perfectly single-voiced — some accounts credit Bimbisara's father, named Bhattiya or Mahapadma in different sources, with establishing the line — but no such figure is offered here, and the attribution examiners use, and that every standard account of Magadha uses, is Bimbisara.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Brihadratha founded a genuinely different and much earlier Magadhan dynasty — the Brihadratha line of the epic tradition, whose best-known king is Jarasandha of the Mahabharata, also seated at Girivraja. The option works because both dynasties are Magadhan and both ruled from the same hills; the discriminator is that the Brihadrathas precede the Haryankas by centuries and belong to legendary rather than datable history.  (c) Ajatashatru (about 492 to 460 BCE) was Bimbisara's son and successor, who came to the throne by imprisoning his father, and he is the more spectacular ruler of the two — he crushed the Vajji confederacy of Vaishali with the mahashilakantaka catapult and the rathamusala chariot, and patronised the First Buddhist Council at Rajagriha. Prominence is not foundation: he inherited the dynasty rather than founding it.  (d) Fails on the record rather than on logic. A dynasty has one founder, and only Bimbisara founded the Haryanka line: Brihadratha founded a different dynasty altogether and Ajatashatru inherited this one. Since no second option is true, 'more than one' has nothing to rest on — and that is the test to apply every time this option appears. Ask whether you can name two options that are simultaneously true; if you cannot, it is not the answer.

Concept: Magadha's rise is the central story of sixth-century-BCE north India, and its dynastic sequence — Brihadratha, then Haryanka, then Shishunaga, then Nanda, then Maurya — is the spine on which every other fact hangs. Magadha's advantages were physical and are worth stating because they explain why this kingdom and not another prevailed: iron ore in the hills of south Bihar for weapons and ploughs, elephants from the eastern forests, a fertile alluvial plain with dependable rainfall, and two successive capitals sited for defence and then for trade — Rajagriha ringed by hills, and Pataliputra at the confluence of the Ganga, Son and Gandak, effectively a water fort. The Haryankas provided the first two of the aggressive rulers who exploited this: Bimbisara, who took Anga and married into three neighbouring houses, and Ajatashatru, who broke Vaishali and absorbed Kosala's territories. Their period is also the moment of the sramana movements — the Buddha and Mahavira were both active in Magadha and its neighbours, and both kings appear in the Buddhist and Jaina canons, which is why so much of what is known about them comes from religious literature rather than from inscriptions.

State PCS 2024 Q77 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q77 — History PYQ with Answer