Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : Buland Darwaja was constructed at Fatehpur Sikri by the Mughal emperor Akbar.
Reason (R) :

Question

Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : Buland Darwaja was constructed at Fatehpur Sikri by the Mughal emperor Akbar.
Reason (R) : Akbar built this monument to commemorate the birth of his son Jahangir.
Select the correct answer from the code given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, (A) is true but (R) is false. The Assertion holds: the Buland Darwaza — 'the lofty gateway' — is the monumental southern entrance to the Jama Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri, raised by Akbar in red and buff sandstone with white-marble inlay, standing about 54 metres above the ground. The Reason does not hold: the gateway commemorates Akbar's conquest of Gujarat, not the birth of a son. A Persian inscription on it records that victory, and the gateway also carries the celebrated line attributed to Jesus — 'The world is a bridge, pass over it, but build no houses upon it.' The examiner has taken a real association and moved it onto the wrong object. Prince Salim, the future Jahangir, was born at Sikri in 1569, and Akbar did honour that birth at this site — by founding a city there from 1571 and building a religious compound in honour of the Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, after whom the prince was named. But the gateway itself is a victory monument: the very name Fatehpur, 'city of victory', comes from the Gujarat campaign of 1573. Since (A) stands and (R) falls, option (b) is the only fit. One honest note on dating: sources place the gateway variously in the mid-1570s and around 1601 (the later date being linked to the Deccan campaign) — but no account attaches it to the birth of a prince.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This option needs the Reason to be true and merely unconnected. It is not true at all: the Buland Darwaza was built to mark a military conquest, and its own inscription says so. A false Reason cannot be salvaged by denying the explanation link.  (c) This inverts both halves. The Assertion is plainly correct — the Buland Darwaza stands at Fatehpur Sikri and was built by Akbar — and the Reason, which credits the gateway to Jahangir's birth, is the false half.  (d) The option a candidate reaches for if they carry the loose classroom line 'Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri because Salim was born there' and stretch it to cover every structure in the complex. The city's founding does have a Salim Chishti connection; this particular gateway does not. With the Reason factually wrong, no explanation relation can exist.

Concept: Fatehpur Sikri, founded by Akbar in 1571 and used as his capital for about fifteen years, is the fullest surviving statement of early Mughal red-sandstone architecture and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. Within it, the Jama Masjid courtyard holds the white-marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti (1478-1572), and on the south side stands the Buland Darwaza. In Indo-Islamic practice, a monumental gateway of this scale was a political statement as much as an architectural one — it announced conquest, and its inscriptions carried the message. That is why the Buland Darwaza is read as a victory arch for the Gujarat campaign.

State PCS 2025 Q63 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q63 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer