SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 4 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Details about Sudarshana lake is given in a rock inscription at Girnar (Junagarh), which was composed to record the achievements of the Shaka ruler _________.

(a)Chashtana
(b)Rudradaman I
(c)Rudrasimha III
(d)Maues

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The Girnar (Junagadh) rock inscription of about 150 CE was composed for Rudradaman I, the Shaka (Western Kshatrapa) ruler.

It records that when a storm burst the dam of Sudarshana lake, he rebuilt it from his own treasury without laying a fresh tax or forced labour on his subjects.

The lake was much older — built under the Mauryas, with conduits added in Ashoka's time. Rudradaman's claim is the repair, and the record is also the earliest long royal inscription in chaste Sanskrit.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Chashtana — Chashtana founded the Kardamaka line of Western Kshatrapas and was Rudradaman's grandfather. The Girnar record is composed for the grandson, not for him.
(c)
Rudrasimha III — Rudrasimha III was the last of the Western Kshatrapas, ending with his defeat by the Gupta ruler Chandragupta II — roughly two and a half centuries after the Sudarshana repair.
(d)
Maues — Maues was an Indo-Scythian king of the north-west, based around Taxila and Gandhara. He is a Shaka name, but he has no link to Saurashtra or the Girnar rock.

Concept

One rock at Girnar in Junagadh, Gujarat, carries three layers of Indian history.

Ashoka's major rock edicts came first, in Prakrit. Rudradaman I added his inscription in about 150 CE — the first long royal record in polished Sanskrit, at a time when royal proclamations were normally Prakrit.

Later a Gupta-era inscription of Skandagupta records yet another repair of the same Sudarshana dam.

One site, three dynasties, one lake: that is why it is set so often.

Key facts

The Junagadh (Girnar) rock inscription of Rudradaman I dates to about 150 CE.
It records the repair of the Sudarshana lake dam, first built in Mauryan times.
It is the earliest long royal inscription composed in chaste Sanskrit rather than Prakrit.
The same rock carries Ashoka's major rock edicts and a later inscription of Skandagupta.

Study next

Western Kshatrapas — Chashtana, Rudradaman I, Rudrasimha IIIThe Junagadh rock and its three sets of inscriptionsThe shift from Prakrit to Sanskrit in royal epigraphy

Common traps

Crediting Rudradaman with building Sudarshana lake instead of repairing its dam.
Marking Maues because the stem says Shaka and Maues is the Shaka name most students meet first.

The same inscription is set from the other end in this exam — also asked 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, General Awareness Q.12, which asks which inscription of Rudradaman is the first royal record in chaste Sanskrit.

So learn the record by three handles at once: the site (Girnar), the ruler (Rudradaman I) and the language claim.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.