Match the following Kings and their dynasties.
A. Aparajita
B. Aditya – I
C. Vijayalaya
D. Bhoja – I
I. Pallava
II. Chola
III. Founder of Chola dynasty
IV. Gurjara

Question

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Correct — option (2): A – I, B – II, C – III, D – IV. Read the four Roman entries carefully before matching anything, because II and III are deliberately close to each other and that closeness is the whole point of the question. Aparajita was the last ruling king of the Pallava dynasty of Kanchi, defeated and killed around 897 CE by the Chola forces — so A pairs with I, Pallava. Vijayalaya Chola seized Tanjore in the mid-ninth century and is credited as the founder of the Imperial (Medieval) Chola line, so C pairs specifically with III, 'Founder of Chola dynasty' — a label the question has deliberately separated from the generic 'Chola' label at II. Aditya I, Vijayalaya's son, consolidated and expanded that new kingdom, defeating Aparajita and annexing Pallava territory, and he is correctly described simply as a Chola ruler rather than as the dynasty's founder — so B pairs with II, not III. Bhoja I, the greatest ruler of the Gurjara-Pratihara line, pairs with D and IV, Gurjara. The item is really testing whether a candidate notices that 'Chola' and 'Founder of Chola dynasty' are two different labels applied to two different generations of the same family — Vijayalaya founded it, his son Aditya I merely ruled it.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Swaps Aparajita and Vijayalaya's labels entirely: it makes Aparajita a Chola ruler (he was Pallava, and in fact the Pallava king the Cholas defeated) and makes Vijayalaya, the Chola dynasty's actual founder, a Pallava (label I). Both of these are reversed from the historical record — Aparajita belongs to the dynasty that was ending, Vijayalaya to the one that was beginning — and the option has simply crossed the two founding-generation figures with each other.  (c) Runs the whole sequence backwards against the historical roles: it sends Aparajita, the Pallava king, to Gurjara (IV); Bhoja I, the Gurjara-Pratihara king, to Pallava (I); and swaps Aditya I and Vijayalaya's labels between II and III just as option (1) does. Every one of its four pairs is wrong, which is the shape a distractor takes when it is built by shuffling the same four labels into a different, equally plausible-looking order rather than by tracking any one dynasty correctly.  (d) Gets Aparajita and Aditya I right — A to Pallava, B to Chola — which is exactly what makes it dangerous: two correct pairs create false confidence. It then sends Vijayalaya, the dynasty's actual founder, to Gurjara (IV), and Bhoja I, the Gurjara-Pratihara ruler, to 'Founder of Chola dynasty' (III) — an internal contradiction, since Bhoja I never founded any Chola line. Once a candidate checks the last two pairs against what each king is actually known for, this option collapses.

Concept: This question sits at the handover point between two of early medieval South India's major dynasties. The Pallavas of Kanchi, who had dominated Tondaimandalam for centuries, were ended as a ruling power when Aparajita, their last king, was defeated by the rising Chola line under Aditya I around 897 CE. That Chola line had itself begun only a generation earlier, when Vijayalaya took Tanjore from the Muttaraiyar chiefs in the mid-ninth century and planted the dynasty that his son and grandson — Aditya I and the celebrated Rajaraja I — would expand into an empire. The Gurjara-Pratiharas, under rulers like Bhoja I (Mihira Bhoja), were a contemporary but geographically separate power in north India, controlling much of the Gangetic plain and repeatedly resisting Arab incursions from the west.

State PCS 2025 Q7 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q7 — History PYQ with Answer