To commemorate the victory of which region did Akbar build the ‘Buland Darwaza’?
- (a)Sindh
- (b)Multan
- (c)Orissa
- (d)Gujarat
Correct — D, Gujarat.
Akbar moved on Gujarat in 1572, took Ahmedabad, and followed it with the reduction of Surat in 1573, folding the wealthy coastal province into the empire. The great southern gateway of the Jama Masjid enclosure at Fatehpur Sikri, the Buland Darwaza, was raised as the monument to that campaign.
The idea to carry away is that the Buland Darwaza is a victory arch, and the victory it names is Gujarat.
Fatehpur Sikri as a city grew around Shaikh Salim Chishti, but this gateway records a military conquest, in the Mughal habit of turning a campaign into architecture.
- (a)Sindh — Sindh did come to Akbar, but later in the reign and through a commander rather than the emperor. Thatta was reduced in 1591 when Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan defeated Mirza Jani Beg, closing Mughal control of the lower Indus.
Sindh is the right answer to the campaign of 1591 that brought Thatta and the lower Indus under Mughal rule. It belongs to a later phase of expansion than the Gujarat war the gateway commemorates.
- (b)Multan — Multan was already inside the empire during Akbar's reign rather than a fresh conquest of the 1570s, so there was no new victory there to commemorate at Fatehpur Sikri.
Multan is the right answer to questions on Akbar's twelve subahs of the 1580 administrative settlement, where it names one of the north-western provinces. Its place in the syllabus is administrative geography, not a war memorial.
- (c)Orissa — Orissa did not pass to the Mughals with the Karrani collapse. The sequence from Tukaroi in 1575 to Daud Khan Karrani's defeat and death at Rajmahal in 1576 delivered Bengal and Bihar; Afghan chiefs held on in Orissa after him.
Orissa is the right answer to Raja Man Singh's conquest, the campaign of 1590–93 decided near Jaleswar in 1592. That eastern war was fought by Akbar's generals; the Gujarat campaign he led himself.
A victory arch is a building put up to fix a specific military event in stone.
The Buland Darwaza is exactly that: a monumental gateway on the south side of the Jama Masjid courtyard at Fatehpur Sikri, approached by a broad flight of steps, built in red sandstone with marble reserved for inlay and inscription panels.
The monument therefore carries two separate stories that are easy to fuse. The city and the saint's tomb belong to Shaikh Salim Chishti and Akbar's devotion to him; the gateway belongs to the Gujarat conquest.
Gujarat mattered to Akbar for more than prestige. Its annexation gave the Mughals the Arabian Sea ports of Surat and Cambay, and with them customs revenue, access to Indian Ocean trade and a sailing point for Haj pilgrims.
The campaign also produced one of the reign's famous episodes: Akbar marched back from Agra at speed in 1573 to put down a rebellion around Ahmedabad. A conquest of that weight, won in person, is the kind of event Mughal builders commemorated.
- Akbar's forces took Ahmedabad in 1572 and Surat in 1573, annexing Gujarat to the Mughal empire.
- The Buland Darwaza stands on the southern side of the Jama Masjid enclosure at Fatehpur Sikri, reached by a broad flight of steps.
- The gateway is built chiefly of red sandstone, with white and black marble used for inlay, borders and inscription panels.
- A Persian inscription on it carries the saying ascribed to Jesus: the world is a bridge, pass over it but build no house upon it.
- Gujarat gave the Mughals the ports of Surat and Cambay, and with them customs revenue and a departure point for Haj pilgrims.
- Akbar led the Gujarat campaign in person and returned rapidly from Agra in 1573 to crush a rebellion around Ahmedabad.
- Thatta in Sindh was annexed in 1591 after Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan defeated Mirza Jani Beg.
- Bengal and Bihar came under Mughal control in 1576 after Daud Khan Karrani's defeat and death at Rajmahal; Orissa was annexed later, by Raja Man Singh in 1592.
Each option is a real part of Akbar's empire; the gateway at Fatehpur Sikri names the Gujarat victory.
- Fatehpur Sikri is remembered for Shaikh Salim Chishti and the birth of Jahangir in 1569; that association attaches to the city and the saint's tomb, while the Buland Darwaza's subject is the Gujarat campaign.
- Sindh in 1591 and Orissa in 1592 are genuine Akbar-era annexations, so asking only whether Akbar conquered the region leaves three options alive; the discriminator is which victory the gateway records.
- The marble inlay on the gateway invites the description 'white marble building'; the fabric is red sandstone, so a statement calling it a marble structure fails on material.
- The gateway's construction date is given differently in different sources, so a question that hangs on a precise year is safer answered from the event commemorated than from a remembered date.
This fact travels in a few shapes. As a direct one-liner naming the region; as an assertion-reason pair where the reason offers a rival motive such as the birth of Jahangir; and as a statement pair on building material.
The work is all in the pairing. Once Buland Darwaza is locked to Gujarat, 1572–73, the rival motives and the material claims sort themselves out.
UPPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q492025Same monument, same builder, same site. What differs is the packaging: UKPSC asks straight out which victory the gateway commemorates, while UPPSC splits it into an assertion-reason pair and puts a rival motive, the birth of Jahangir, in the reason limb. The Gujarat attribution tested here is what decides that reason limb.
UPSC_2018_GS1_Q722018Same gateway, a different property of it. UPSC probes building material, and its key rejects the description of Buland Darwaza as a white marble structure; UKPSC probes the event commemorated. One asks what it is made of, the other why it was made.
CAPF_GAI_2021_Q862021Same site, wider frame. The CAPF item tracks Akbar's building programme as a chronology — the Agra fort in the 1560s, the new capital at Fatehpur Sikri in the 1570s, the white marble tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti — where UKPSC isolates one structure within that complex and asks what it records.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Akbar's conquest of Gujarat in 1572–73 is commemorated by which structure at Fatehpur Sikri?
- (a)Panch Mahal
- (b)Buland Darwaza
- (c)Diwan-i-Khas
- (d)Tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti
Answerb — The Buland Darwaza, the southern gateway of the Jama Masjid enclosure, is the victory gate raised for the Gujarat campaign.The Panch Mahal is the five-storeyed pillared pavilion of tapering tiers. The Diwan-i-Khas is the hall built around a great carved central pillar with radiating bracketed walkways. The tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti is the white marble shrine of the Chishti saint inside the mosque courtyard.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Mughal annexation of which region under Akbar gave the empire direct control of the ports of Surat and Cambay?
- (a)Bengal
- (b)Sindh
- (c)Gujarat
- (d)Malwa
Answerc — Surat and Cambay lie on the Gujarat coast, and both came to the Mughals with the campaign of 1572–73.Bengal was taken from the Karrani Afghans and its outlets face the Bay of Bengal. Sindh, annexed in 1591, controls the Indus delta and Thatta. Malwa, annexed early in the reign, is an inland plateau province with no seaboard.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri is built principally of which material?
- (a)White marble throughout
- (b)Red sandstone, with marble used for inlay
- (c)Lakhauri brick faced with lime stucco
- (d)Grey granite
Answerb — The gateway's fabric is red sandstone; white and black marble appear as inlay, borders and inscription panels, not as the body of the structure.White marble throughout describes the tomb of Shaikh Salim Chishti in the same courtyard. Lakhauri brick with lime stucco describes the Awadh buildings at Lucknow such as the Bara Imambara. Grey granite is the material of southern temple architecture such as the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur.