Pushyabhuti dynasty, after Prabhakarvardhana, strengthened its position in the regions of Punjab and Haryana after defeating which of the following dynasties?

Correct — B. Prabhakaravardhana of the Pushyabhutis, ruling from Thanesar in Haryana, made his house a real power by beating back the Hunas on the north-western frontier.

Banabhatta's Harshacharita describes him as a lion to the Huna deer, and names the rulers of Sindh, the Gurjaras, Gandhara, Lata and Malwa among his other adversaries.

It is that frontier success that gave the dynasty its grip on the Punjab and Haryana country.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Chalukyas — The Chalukyas of Badami were a Deccan power, and their clash with this house came a generation later, when Pulakeshin II checked Harsha in the south. They were never a Punjab adversary.
• (c)
  Maitrakas — The Maitrakas ruled from Vallabhi in Saurashtra as former Gupta feudatories. Their theatre is western India, not the Punjab and Haryana frontier.
• (d)
  Maukharis — The Maukharis of Kannauj were allies, not victims — Prabhakaravardhana's daughter Rajyashri married the Maukhari ruler Grahavarman.

The Pushyabhuti or Vardhana dynasty rose in the wreckage of the Gupta empire, with its seat at Thanesar, ancient Sthanvishvara, in Haryana.

Prabhakaravardhana was the first of the line to take the imperial title Maharajadhiraja, and he took it on the strength of frontier war against the Hunas.

Their rulers Toramana and Mihirakula had broken into north-western India in the preceding decades.

His son Harsha inherited that Punjab and Haryana base and then added Kannauj, moving his capital there after the Maukhari line ended. Hold the sequence: Thanesar first, Kannauj after.

Key facts

• The Pushyabhuti (Vardhana) dynasty ruled from Thanesar in Haryana before Harsha shifted the capital to Kannauj.
• Prabhakaravardhana strengthened the dynasty by defeating the Hunas and assumed the title Maharajadhiraja.
• Banabhatta's Harshacharita is the main literary source for the dynasty.
• Toramana and Mihirakula were the Huna rulers who invaded north-western India in the late fifth and sixth centuries.

Common traps

• Picking the Maukharis because they belong to the same story, when they were allies by marriage.
• Answering as though the stem were about Harsha, when it names Prabhakaravardhana and the north-western frontier.

No directly related past PYQ was found.