The Hindu pilgrimage place named ‘Purnagiri’ is situated in which district of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Almora
- (b)Pithoragarh
- (c)Champawat
- (d)Rudraprayag
Correct — C, Champawat.
Purnagiri — also written Punyagiri — stands on the Annapurna peak above the Kali river, about 20 km from Tanakpur, and the Champawat district administration lists it among the district's own tourist places.
The administrative trail settles it further. Champawat's tehsils include one named Poornagiri, and Tanakpur, the road-head for the climb to the shrine, is a town of the same district.
The shrine is revered as a Shakti Peeth, associated with the belief that Sati's navel fell at this spot, and the Purnagiri Mela is held in the month of Chaitra.
The idea to carry away: Purnagiri sits at the Tanakpur end of Champawat, where the Kali leaves the hills and continues as the Sharda.
- (a)Almora — Almora is the right answer to Jageshwar, the cluster of stone Shiva temples that is the district's best-known pilgrimage anchor, and to the Chitai Golu Devta shrine near Almora town.
Almora lies in the interior of Kumaon, well west of the Kali. Purnagiri is on the Kali itself, in Champawat district.
- (b)Pithoragarh — Pithoragarh is the right answer to Patal Bhuvaneshwar, the cave shrine its district administration lists among its tourist places, and it is also the district the Adi Kailash and Om Parvat routes run through.
This is the option with real history behind it. Champawat was carved out of Pithoragarh district in 1997, so Purnagiri did once fall inside Pithoragarh; since that year it has been in Champawat.
- (d)Rudraprayag — Rudraprayag is the right answer to Kedarnath, and the district town takes its name from the confluence of the Alaknanda and the Mandakini.
Rudraprayag is a Garhwal district in the west of the state. Purnagiri is a Kumaon shrine in the far east, above the Kali, close to the boundary with Nepal.
A pilgrimage-site question of this kind is not testing the deity or the legend. It asks you to place a known name on the state's administrative map — which of the present districts contains it.
That is a mapping between two independent lists. Shrines are ancient and fixed in place; districts are administrative creations whose names and boundaries can change.
Uttarakhand's district map is recent. Champawat was carved out of Pithoragarh in 1997, so a shrine that has stood in one place for centuries has answered to more than one district name within living memory.
Purnagiri also sits at a hinge in the physical geography — the point where the Kali comes down from the hills towards the plains and continues as the Sharda, along the boundary with Nepal.
- Purnagiri, also written Punyagiri, is listed by the Champawat district administration among that district's tourist places.
- The shrine stands on the Annapurna peak above the Kali river, about 20 km from Tanakpur.
- Champawat district was carved out of Pithoragarh district in 1997.
- Champawat district's tehsils include one named Poornagiri, and Tanakpur is a town of the district.
- The Kali river is known as the Sharda after it descends from the hills into the plains near this point.
- Purnagiri is revered as a Shakti Peeth, associated with the belief that Sati's navel fell there.
- The Purnagiri Mela is held in the Hindu month of Chaitra, which falls in March–April.
- Champawat town was the seat of the Chand rulers of Kumaon, and the Baleshwar temple stands there.
- Gurdwara Reetha Sahib, Abbott Mount, Lohaghat and Pancheshwar are also in Champawat district.
The keyed district beside the three alternatives named in the options, each with a pilgrimage anchor of its own.
- Champawat was part of Pithoragarh until 1997, so a source written before that year can place Purnagiri in Pithoragarh and be right for its own time yet wrong for this question.
- Tanakpur is a town of Champawat district even though it stands where the hills meet the plains; reading it as a terai town outside the district drags the shrine to the wrong answer.
- The river changes name here — Kali above, Sharda below — so anchoring the shrine to 'the Sharda' and then thinking of the plains can pull the answer away from Champawat.
- The Sati legend attaches to Shakti Peeths in many parts of India, so recalling the legend confirms the shrine's status without fixing its district; the district has to be learnt as a separate fact.
- Purnagiri and Punyagiri are two spellings of the same shrine, and Champawat also has a tehsil named Poornagiri — treating these as separate places invents a location that does not have to be found.
The plainest form is a place-to-district item like this one, with four district names as the options. The same fact can be asked in reverse, with a district named and the shrine to be picked.
It can also be folded into a matching set that pairs several places with hill ranges, districts or rivers at once — the 2015 UPSC pairs item on places of pilgrimage is of that shape — where one shaky pair costs the whole item.
The same ground can be reached through the 1997 reorganisation, asking which district Champawat was separated from, or through the river the shrine overlooks.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q642024Same demand: attach an attribute to the correct Uttarakhand district and pick that district from four names. What differs is the kind of attribute — Q64 turns on a fish-production ranking for one year, a figure that can move, while the district of a shrine is fixed geography.
UPSC_2015_GS1_Q152015Same subject matter: locating a place of pilgrimage correctly. What differs is the scale and the format — the UPSC item pairs shrines from across India with hill ranges in a matching set, whereas this one places a single Uttarakhand shrine inside a district of that state.
MPPSC_2021_PRE_PaperI_Q832021Same skill of holding place-to-district pairs for a state. What differs is the subject and the framing — the MPPSC item is about thermal power stations in Madhya Pradesh and is put in the negative, so the reasoning has to run across four pairs instead of settling one.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Purnagiri temple in Uttarakhand overlooks a river that is known by a different name once it descends from the hills. Which river is it?
- (a)Ramganga
- (b)Kali
- (c)Gori
- (d)Saryu
Answerb — The Kali flows past Purnagiri and is called the Sharda after it comes down to the plains near Tanakpur.The Ramganga (West) rises in Chamoli and joins the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh; the Eastern Ramganga joins the Saryu, not the river below the shrine.
The Gori Ganga is a tributary that joins the Kali at Jauljibi in Pithoragarh district, and the Saryu joins the Kali at Pancheshwar — neither of them is the river the shrine looks down on.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Champawat district of Uttarakhand was created in 1997 chiefly by carving it out of which district?
- (a)Almora
- (b)Chamoli
- (c)Pithoragarh
- (d)Bageshwar
Answerc — Champawat was separated from Pithoragarh district in 1997, which is why older material still places Purnagiri and Lohaghat in Pithoragarh.Almora is the district from which Bageshwar was carved out. Chamoli is a Garhwal district, at the opposite end of the state from Champawat.
Bageshwar itself was created in the same round of reorganisation, so it was not in a position to be anyone's parent district.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following pilgrimage places is situated in Champawat district of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Jageshwar
- (b)Patal Bhuvaneshwar
- (c)Gurdwara Reetha Sahib
- (d)Kedarnath
Answerc — Gurdwara Reetha Sahib, associated with Guru Nanak, is listed by the Champawat district administration among the district's places of interest, alongside Purnagiri and the Baleshwar temple.Jageshwar is the Shiva temple complex of Almora district. Patal Bhuvaneshwar is the cave shrine listed by Pithoragarh district. Kedarnath is in Rudraprayag district, in Garhwal.