To gain control over Kannauj the Tripartite Struggle was fought between which of the following dynasties?

Correct — B. The Tripartite Struggle of the eighth and ninth centuries CE was fought for Kannauj by three powers: the Gurjara-Pratiharas of western India, the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan and the Palas of Bengal and Bihar.

Kannauj mattered because whoever held it held the upper Ganga plain — its revenues, its trade routes and the prestige of Harshavardhana's old capital.

The Pratiharas ended up in possession, and Nagabhata II made Kannauj their capital. Option (b) names the three contenders.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Khalji, Tughlaq and Lodhi — Khalji, Tughlaq and Lodhi are Delhi Sultanate dynasties of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries. They followed one another on the same throne rather than fighting each other for Kannauj, and they come centuries too late.
• (c)
  Solanki, Parmar and Chandella — Solanki, Parmar and Chandella are the Rajput dynasties of Gujarat, Malwa and Bundelkhand, and they rose later. Their rivalries were regional, not a contest for Kannauj.
• (d)
  Pallava, Pandya and Chola — Pallava, Pandya and Chola are southern powers. Their long three-way contest was over Kanchi and the Kaveri delta, far from the Ganga plain.

Between roughly the mid-eighth and the mid-tenth centuries, three regional empires fought over the middle of north India.

The Palas rose in Bengal under Gopala and peaked under Dharmapala and Devapala.

The Rashtrakutas ruled the Deccan from Manyakheta and struck north repeatedly, Dhruva and Govinda III both defeating rivals in the plain.

The Gurjara-Pratiharas held the west, first from Bhinmal and later from Kannauj itself.

None of the three could hold the centre for long, and the exhaustion of all three is part of why the plain lay open to raids from the north-west in the eleventh century.

Key facts

• The Tripartite Struggle was fought for Kannauj between the Gurjara-Pratiharas, the Rashtrakutas and the Palas.
• Kannauj had been the capital of Harshavardhana and remained the symbolic centre of the Ganga plain.
• Nagabhata II of the Pratiharas took Kannauj and made it his capital.
• Gopala founded the Pala dynasty in the eighth century CE, and Dharmapala and Devapala extended it.

Common traps

• Picking the Delhi Sultanate triple because those names are more familiar
• Placing the struggle in the south, since three-way contests are also a southern pattern

No directly related past PYQ was found.