Match the following dynasties and their kingdoms.
(a) Maitrakas
(b) Chahumanas
(c) Gurjaras
(d) Paramaras
(i) Valabhi
(ii) Sakambhari
(iii) Broach
(iv) Dhara

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

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.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) 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.  (c) 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.  (d) 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.

Concept: 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.

State PCS 2026 Q15 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q15 — History PYQ with Answer