Who constructed the Lake Sudarshan?
- (a)Chandra Gupta Maurya
- (b)Samudra Gupta
- (c)Chandra Gupta Vikramaditya
- (d)Bimbisara
Correct — A, Chandra Gupta Maurya.
Sudarshana was an artificial reservoir near Girinagara, at the foot of the Girnar hills in Saurashtra, formed by damming the streams coming off those hills.
What is known of its origin comes from the Junagadh rock inscription of the Saka ruler Rudradaman I, dated to about 150 CE. That record says the reservoir was built by Pushyagupta, the Vaishya provincial governor of Chandra Gupta Maurya, and that conduits were added later by the Yavana Tushaspha in Ashoka's reign.
Carry away that the king who inscribes a record need not be the one who built what it describes — Rudradaman is repairing, and looking back on, work of roughly four and a half centuries earlier.
- (b)Samudra Gupta — Samudragupta reigned in the fourth century CE, more than six centuries after Chandragupta Maurya, and the record he is remembered by is a eulogy of campaigns rather than an account of public works in Saurashtra.
He is the right answer to questions on the Allahabad Pillar inscription, the Prayaga Prashasti composed by his court poet Harishena, which lists his campaigns in the north and the Deccan and styles him a king among poets.
- (c)Chandra Gupta Vikramaditya — Saurashtra did pass into Gupta hands with Chandragupta II's defeat of the Western Kshatrapas, which makes this option tempting — but winning the region is not building the reservoir in it.
The Gupta episode in the lake's own story belongs to Skandagupta's reign, when the embankment burst again and was rebuilt in the 450s CE by Chakrapalita, son of the governor Parnadatta.
Chandragupta II is the right answer to the Gupta ruler in whose reign the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien travelled through India.
- (d)Bimbisara — Bimbisara belongs to the Haryanka line of Magadha and to the age of the Buddha and Mahavira, close to two centuries before the Mauryan empire and far to the east of Saurashtra.
He is the right answer to the Magadhan ruler who annexed Anga and built his position through matrimonial alliances, with the Kosala, Licchavi and Madra houses, and who was succeeded by his son Ajatashatru.
Sudarshana was a man-made lake, an irrigation work rather than a natural water body, created by throwing an embankment across hill streams near Girnar in Saurashtra.
Its interest lies in how it is documented. Rulers of different dynasties used the same rock face at Junagadh, and the lake's own dated chain of records runs from Rudradaman I's account of about 150 CE to the Gupta-period repair of the 450s CE.
The Mauryan phase is known from inside that later record: Rudradaman's inscription looks back and names the builder.
The lake sits where three syllabus strands meet: Mauryan provincial administration in the west, the Western Kshatrapas under Rudradaman I, and Gupta provincial governance under Skandagupta.
It is also the standard illustration of state-funded irrigation in early India, read alongside the Arthashastra's provisions on embankments and irrigation dues, and it shows a state maintaining a productive asset across changes of dynasty.
- Sudarshana Lake lay near Girinagara, present-day Junagadh, at the foot of the Girnar hills in Saurashtra, Gujarat.
- The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman I, dated about 150 CE, credits the reservoir's construction to Pushyagupta, provincial governor of Chandragupta Maurya.
- The same inscription records that conduits were added to the lake by the Yavana Tushaspha during Ashoka's reign.
- Rudradaman I states that he rebuilt the burst embankment from his own treasury, without levying tax or forced labour on his subjects.
- Rudradaman's Junagadh record is generally described as the earliest long inscription composed in fairly standard Sanskrit.
- A Junagadh inscription of Skandagupta's reign records a further repair carried out by Chakrapalita, son of the governor Parnadatta, in the 450s CE.
- The same Girnar rock at Junagadh also carries Ashoka's fourteen major rock edicts.
The Girnar rock carries Ashoka's major rock edicts, Rudradaman I's account of the repair, and the Gupta-period repair inscription. Option A names the reign in which the lake was constructed.
- The lake's famous inscription is Rudradaman's, but it records a repair; treating the inscription's author as the builder produces the wrong ruler.
- Pushyagupta carries '-gupta' in his name yet served the Mauryas; the name element does not place him in the fourth-century Gupta line.
- Saurashtra genuinely became Gupta territory under Chandragupta II, so reasoning from 'who ruled Gujarat' instead of 'who built the dam' lands on option (c).
- Bimbisara is Magadhan and pre-Mauryan; placing him in western India means setting aside both the geography and the chronology.
- The Gupta-period repair belongs to Skandagupta's reign, not to Samudragupta's or Chandragupta II's.
What is known about the lake comes largely from one rock, so the same material is turned in several directions: who built the reservoir, who added its conduits, who repaired it about 150 CE, and who repaired it again under the Guptas.
The same record can be asked about in other ways too: as the earliest long inscription composed in fairly standard Sanskrit, and as a set of names to pair with their rulers — Pushyagupta with Chandragupta Maurya, Tushaspha with Ashoka, Chakrapalita with Skandagupta.
No eligible match among this question's citable set.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Junagadh rock inscription that records the repair of the Sudarshana Lake in about 150 CE was issued by
- (a)Rudradaman I
- (b)Nahapana
- (c)Gautamiputra Satakarni
- (d)Kanishka
Answera — Rudradaman I, the Western Kshatrapa ruler, issued the Junagadh rock inscription describing the burst embankment and its rebuilding at his own cost.Nahapana was an earlier Kshaharata ruler whose coins were restruck after his defeat; Gautamiputra Satakarni is the Satavahana king celebrated in the Nasik prashasti of Gautami Balashri; Kanishka belongs to the Kushana line in the north-west.
- practice — not a real PYQ
According to the Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman I, conduits were added to the Sudarshana Lake by the Yavana Tushaspha during the reign of
- (a)Bindusara
- (b)Ashoka
- (c)Kanishka
- (d)Samudragupta
Answerb — the inscription attributes the original construction to Pushyagupta under Chandragupta Maurya and the later conduits to Tushaspha in Ashoka's reign.Bindusara is Chandragupta's successor and Ashoka's predecessor, but the conduits are placed in Ashoka's time; Kanishka and Samudragupta both belong to periods well after the Mauryas.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The repair of the Sudarshana Lake embankment recorded in the Gupta-period Junagadh inscription was carried out in the reign of
- (a)Chandragupta I
- (b)Samudragupta
- (c)Chandragupta II
- (d)Skandagupta
Answerd — the Junagadh inscription of the 450s CE records the rebuilding by Chakrapalita, son of the governor Parnadatta, in Skandagupta's reign.Chandragupta I belongs to the dynasty's beginnings; Samudragupta is remembered through the Allahabad Pillar eulogy; Chandragupta II brought Saurashtra under Gupta rule by defeating the Western Kshatrapas, but the recorded repair is later than his reign.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Pushyagupta, named in the Junagadh rock inscription in connection with the Sudarshana Lake, was
- (a)a Yavana governor who added the lake's conduits under Ashoka
- (b)the provincial governor of Chandragupta Maurya in Saurashtra
- (c)the court poet who composed the Prayaga Prashasti
- (d)the son of the Gupta governor Parnadatta
Answerb — the inscription describes Pushyagupta as the Vaishya provincial governor of Chandragupta Maurya, under whom the reservoir was built.Option (a) describes Tushaspha; option (c) describes Harishena, Samudragupta's court poet; option (d) describes Chakrapalita, who carried out the Gupta-period repair.