RAS question
Kushinagar and Pava were the capitals of which Mahajanapada?
Correct answer: (B) Malla.
Kushinagar, also known as Kusinara, and Pava were the two important towns associated with the Malla Mahajanapada.
Explanation
The answer is Malla because the Mallas were a tribal people of the Buddha's time whose two most important towns were Kushinagara, or Kusinara, and Pava. This matches the standard Mahajanapada mapping in the question: the Malla polity had two branches centred on these places. The locations also connect to two major religious events, with Buddha's Mahaparinirvana at Kushinagar and Mahavira's at Pava, which is why the pair is repeatedly asked in ancient-history MCQs. Encyclopaedia Britannica further supports the political character by noting that the Mallas had a republican form of government with an assembly, aligning with the gana-sangha description.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Vajji is wrong because the Kushinagar-Pava pair is tied to the Mallas, not to the Vajji confederacy.
- (C) Kosala is wrong because Kushinagara and Pava were the two important Malla towns, while the question asks for that specific capital pair.
- (D) Anga is wrong because Anga is not connected with Kushinagar/Kusinara and Pava.
Concept
This tests the ancient-history syllabus area on the sixteen Mahajanapadas, especially capital-location mapping and republican gana-sangha polities. It recurs in RAS because such pairs connect political geography with Buddhism and Jainism in one compact fact.