Which Mughal Emperor sent the survey team to Garhwal to explore the origin of Ganga river?
- (a)Akbar
- (b)Jahangir
- (c)Shahjahan
- (d)Aurangzeb
Correct — A, Akbar.
The party sent into the Garhwal hills to find where the Ganga begins belongs to the reign of Akbar, 1556 to 1605. His attachment to Ganga water is the best-documented of the Mughals — the Ain-i-Akbari records that he called it the water of immortality and describes how it was fetched for him.
Carry away the pairing itself — the Ganga's source and the Garhwal hills belong to Akbar's reign, not to a later one. Gangotri, Gaumukh and Devprayag all lie in that hill kingdom, so a stem that joins a Mughal emperor to the river's origin is pointing at the first of these four.
- (b)Jahangir — Jahangir, who ruled from 1605 to 1627, is the emperor to reach for on the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri and the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, sent to his court by James I of England.
His memoirs record close observation of plants, animals and landscape, which makes him a tempting fit for an exploring mission. The keyed expedition to the Ganga's source is his father's, one reign earlier.
- (c)Shahjahan — Shah Jahan, who ruled from 1628 to 1658, is the right answer to the Taj Mahal and the new capital of Shahjahanabad at Delhi, along with the Peacock Throne.
His reign is remembered for building and court display. The Garhwal survey party sits two reigns earlier, with Akbar.
- (d)Aurangzeb — Aurangzeb, who ruled from 1658 to 1707, is tied to a well-known Mughal encounter with Garhwal: the refuge that Suleiman Shikoh, son of Dara Shukoh, found there after the war of succession before he was surrendered to the emperor.
That is a political story about a fugitive prince, not about a river. Garhwal enters Mughal history through both doors, and the Ganga-source door is the Akbar-period one.
The Mughal court's interest in the Ganga was devotional and courtly before it was geographical. Akbar treated Ganga water as the water of immortality and had it carried to wherever the court sat, and the wish to know where such a river begins pointed upstream into the Garhwal Himalaya.
Garhwal at that time was a separate hill kingdom under the Parmar (Panwar) line, seated at Srinagar on the Alaknanda. A party sent there from the plains was entering another ruler's territory, which is why the episode is remembered as much in Uttarakhand's history as in Mughal history.
This item sits where two syllabus areas meet: medieval Indian history and the state's own geography. Gaumukh, Gangotri, the Bhagirathi and the confluence at Devprayag are all Garhwal ground, so a Mughal expedition to the source is a state-history fact as much as a Mughal one.
It also marks one stage in a long chain of enquiry about the same few kilometres of ice and rock — a court-sent party in the sixteenth century, and Survey of India officers working up the Bhagirathi to Gaumukh in the early nineteenth.
- Akbar reigned from 1556 to 1605; Jahangir followed until 1627, Shah Jahan until 1658 and Aurangzeb until 1707.
- The Ain-i-Akbari, compiled by Abu'l Fazl, records Akbar's use of Ganga water, which he called the water of immortality.
- Ganga water for Akbar's household was fetched from Soron, and from Haridwar when the court was in the Punjab.
- Through the Mughal period Garhwal was an independent kingdom of the Parmar (Panwar) dynasty, seated at Srinagar on the Alaknanda.
- The Bhagirathi issues from Gaumukh, the snout of the Gangotri glacier, in Uttarkashi district of the Garhwal Himalaya.
- The river is called Ganga from Devprayag onward, where the Bhagirathi is joined by the Alaknanda.
- Suleiman Shikoh, son of Dara Shukoh, sheltered in Garhwal after the war of succession and was later surrendered to Aurangzeb.
Each option is the answer to something of its own; the Ganga-source expedition is the Akbar entry.
- Reading 'survey team' as a modern scientific survey and reaching for the British explorers of the Bhagirathi; the stem restricts the answer to a Mughal emperor.
- Letting Garhwal pull the answer to Aurangzeb, because the fugitive prince Suleiman Shikoh sheltered there; that episode is about politics, not about the river's source.
- Treating Gangotri and Gaumukh as one place: Gangotri is the temple town, Gaumukh the glacier snout upstream of it.
- Assuming the river is Ganga from its source; the stream from Gaumukh is the Bhagirathi, and the name Ganga begins at Devprayag.
- Confusing the two Srinagars: the Garhwal capital on the Alaknanda is not the Kashmiri city of the same name.
The pairing appears as a straight name-the-emperor item like this one. Be ready to recognise the same pairing from either end — emperor given, region asked, or region given, emperor asked.
The same ground is examined as pure geography, through the stream that leaves Gaumukh and the confluence that makes the Ganga, and as Uttarakhand history, through the points at which Garhwal's rulers met the Mughal court. Read the stem to see which of the three it is testing before answering.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1392024The next item in the same paper, on the same theme of Mughal contact with Garhwal. What is shared is the setting: a hill kingdom dealing with the imperial court. What differs is the direction of travel — this question sends a Mughal party into Garhwal for the Ganga's source, while that one asks which Garhwal prince entered Mughal service as a mansabdar.
CDS_GK_2023_I_Q572023Also a Ganga question, but downstream and purely geographical: it asks for the west-to-east order of cities on the river's plains course. This item is about the headwaters and about who went looking for them, so the shared subject is the river while the tested skill is different — river-course sequencing there, medieval history here.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The river is known as the Ganga from which confluence in Garhwal onward?
- (a)Devprayag
- (b)Rudraprayag
- (c)Karnaprayag
- (d)Vishnuprayag
Answera — Devprayag is where the Bhagirathi, coming from Gaumukh, joins the Alaknanda, and the combined river carries the name Ganga downstream from there.The other three are confluences on the Alaknanda above that meeting point, so at each of them the river is still the Alaknanda. Rudraprayag is its junction with the Mandakini, Karnaprayag with the Pindar and Vishnuprayag with the Dhauliganga.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Gaumukh, the snout of the Gangotri glacier from which the Bhagirathi emerges, lies in which district of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Chamoli
- (b)Uttarkashi
- (c)Rudraprayag
- (d)Tehri Garhwal
Answerb — Gaumukh and the Gangotri glacier lie in Uttarkashi district, the upper Bhagirathi valley, which also holds Gangotri town and Gangotri National Park.Chamoli is the Alaknanda's district, holding Badrinath and Joshimath. Rudraprayag lies lower down where the Mandakini meets the Alaknanda. Tehri Garhwal lies downstream on the Bhagirathi, around the Tehri dam, below the glacier.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Suleiman Shikoh, son of Dara Shukoh, took shelter in the Garhwal kingdom and was later surrendered to which Mughal emperor?
- (a)Akbar
- (b)Jahangir
- (c)Shahjahan
- (d)Aurangzeb
Answerd — Suleiman Shikoh fled to Garhwal after his father Dara Shukoh lost the war of succession, and the Garhwal court eventually gave him up to Aurangzeb, the victor of that war.The struggle was fought over Shah Jahan's throne and ended with Aurangzeb seated on it, so the emperor who received the prince was Aurangzeb. Akbar and Jahangir belong to generations before the episode.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which work records Akbar's practice of drinking Ganga water, which he described as the water of immortality?
- (a)Ain-i-Akbari
- (b)Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri
- (c)Badshahnama
- (d)Fatawa-i-Alamgiri
Answera — The Ain-i-Akbari, Abu'l Fazl's account of Akbar's household and administration, is where the emperor's use of Ganga water is described, along with the arrangements for fetching it.The Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri is Jahangir's own memoir and the Badshahnama is the chronicle of Shah Jahan's reign, so both belong to later emperors. The Fatawa-i-Alamgiri is a compilation of law made under Aurangzeb, not a court chronicle.