‘Barahat Shakti Stambh’ inscription is related to which of the following?
- (a)Guh
- (b)Sarva Varman
- (c)Sen Varman
- (d)Chakreshwar
Correct — A, Guh.
Barahat is the older name of the town now called Uttarkashi, on the Bhagirathi in upper Garhwal. The Shakti Stambh is the tall metal trident standing in the Shakti temple there, facing the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
The writing on that shaft records the Vishwanath temple as the work of a king named Ganeshwar, and credits the trident itself to his son, Guh. That father-and-son pair is the whole content the question tests.
Carry the place away first: Barahat is Uttarkashi. Fix the findspot and the name attached to the object follows.
- (b)Sarva Varman — Sarva Varman is a ruler of the Maukhari line of Kanauj, the post-Gupta power of the Ganga plains whose genealogy is known from the Asirgarh copper seal.
He sits in a different region and a different body of records. The Barahat shaft names Ganeshwar and his son Guh, and that is the join this question is built on.
- (c)Sen Varman — Senavarman is a real king, and the record that names him is the Lakhamandal prashasti in Jaunsar-Bawar, Dehradun district. He stands first in the Singhpur genealogy that sixth-century Sanskrit slab sets out.
That genealogy runs down to the widowed princess of the Yadu line of Singhpur who endowed the shrine for her husband Chandragupta.
So the name belongs to a stone slab in the Dehradun hills, not to the trident at Barahat, which carries Ganeshwar and his son Guh.
- (d)Chakreshwar — The Uttarkashi trident inscription names King Ganeshwar, credited with the Vishwanath temple, and his son Guh, credited with the trident itself. Those are the two names the question can be answered from.
Chakreshwar is neither of them, so the shaft gives nothing to support it.
An inscription question is really a question about a place. Every epigraph has a findspot, and the findspot is what pins the names on it.
'Shakti Stambh' names an object, not a person: a large trident raised as a votive pillar, with a record cut into the metal. The names on it are the people who built the temple and set up the trident.
Uttarakhand's early history has little narrative chronicle behind it. What survives is inscribed — Ashoka's edicts cut on rock at Kalsi, copper-plate grants from the Alaknanda valley, stone prashastis, and inscribed metal tridents at Barahat and Gopeshwar.
Each object anchors a name to a valley. A practical way to revise this material is to hold it as a map of findspots — object, place, name — rather than to look for a continuous story of reigns.
- Barahat is the older name of the town now called Uttarkashi, which stands on the Bhagirathi in upper Garhwal.
- The Shakti Stambh is a large metal trident housed in the Shakti temple at Uttarkashi, opposite the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
- The Uttarkashi district administration describes it as a brass trident about 26 feet high, its base measuring 8 feet 9 inches.
- Its inscription records the Vishwanath temple as the work of King Ganeshwar and credits the trident to his son Guh.
- Kalsi, in Dehradun district, carries Ashoka's rock edicts — another inscribed site within present-day Uttarakhand.
- The Lakhamandal prashasti, a sixth-century Sanskrit slab in Jaunsar-Bawar, records a princess of the Yadu line of Singhpur endowing a shrine for her husband Chandragupta.
- Gopeshwar, in Chamoli district, has its own smaller inscribed trident at a Shiva temple.
Five inscribed records, five findspots; the highlighted row is the one this question turns on.
- Reading 'Shakti' as a modern scheme or memorial and hunting for a contemporary name, when the stem asks about an inscription and the answer has to be a person on an old record.
- Not knowing that Barahat is the old name of Uttarkashi leaves the item unanchored, because the option list carries no geographical hint of its own.
- Two look-alike options, Sarva Varman and Sen Varman, pull attention into choosing between them — a matched pair like that can both sit outside the record.
- Transferring Uttarakhand's -varman names onto the Barahat trident: those names belong to a stone prashasti in the Dehradun hills, a different findspot altogether.
This idea arrives as a one-to-one join: an inscription or inscribed object on one side, and on the other a king, donor or author to be matched to it.
The variants change what you must supply — the ruler behind the record, the place it was found, the script or language it uses, or a detail stated inside its own text.
UPSC_2006_GS1_Q1442006The same join run on a different object — a named inscribed pillar on one side, the figure behind it on the other. What differs is scale: the Allahabad pillar prashasti is an imperial record in the national syllabus, while the Barahat trident is a local Garhwal object carried by state-level material.
UKPSC_2012_MAINS_PaperII_Q132012Same commission and the same state's epigraphy, but a different record and a different demand: a descriptive Mains note on the Kalsi inscription, an Ashokan rock edict in Dehradun district, against this Prelims item's single name off the Barahat trident.
MPPSC_2024_PRE_PaperI_Q1002024Another state commission running the inscription-to-person join in the same year. It points at the composer of a Malwa prashasti, whereas this item points at the man credited with setting up a Garhwal trident.
CDS_GK_2023_II_Q712023Also an epigraphy item, but the demand is inverted: it asks for a figure stated inside the Hathigumpha text of Kharavela rather than for the name attached to the object. Same habit of reading inscriptions as sources, different retrieval.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Shakti Stambh, a large inscribed metal trident, stands at which of the following places in Uttarakhand?
- (a)Kalsi
- (b)Barahat (Uttarkashi)
- (c)Lakhamandal
- (d)Jageshwar
Answerb — Barahat, the older name of Uttarkashi, is where the trident stands in the Shakti temple facing the Kashi Vishwanath temple.Kalsi in Dehradun district is an Ashokan rock-edict site. Lakhamandal, in Jaunsar-Bawar, is known for its stone temple and sixth-century prashasti. Jageshwar in Almora district is a cluster of stone Shiva temples.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Lakhamandal stone inscription, which records a princess of the Yadu line of Singhpur endowing a shrine for her husband, lies in which present-day district of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Uttarkashi
- (b)Chamoli
- (c)Dehradun
- (d)Almora
Answerc — Lakhamandal sits in the Jaunsar-Bawar tract of Dehradun district.Uttarkashi holds the Barahat trident of Ganeshwar and Guh. Chamoli holds the smaller inscribed trident at Gopeshwar. Almora district is associated with the Jageshwar temple group.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Ashoka's rock edicts in present-day Uttarakhand are inscribed at:
- (a)Barahat
- (b)Kalsi
- (c)Gopeshwar
- (d)Pandukeshwar
Answerb — Kalsi, in Dehradun district near the Yamuna, carries Ashoka's rock edicts.Barahat has the inscribed Shakti trident, Gopeshwar in Chamoli has a smaller inscribed trident at its Shiva temple, and Pandukeshwar is known for copper-plate grants. The Ashokan edict site among the four is Kalsi.