RAS question
The Diwan-i-Khas at the Red Fort, Delhi, had the famous inscription:
Correct answer: (B) 'If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this'.
The Diwan-i-Khas at the Red Fort, Delhi, is associated with the inscription: "If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this."
Explanation
The answer is the famous couplet attributed to Amir Khusrau: "If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." This is the celebrated inscription connected with the Diwan-i-Khas. The Archaeological Survey of India describes the Diwan-i-Khass as the Red Fort's Hall of Private Audience: a highly ornamented pillared hall, with a flat ceiling on engrailed arches, floral pietra dura panels on the lower piers, and originally gilded and painted upper portions. That setting explains why the couplet fits the monument: the hall represented Shahjahan's refined courtly architecture, not a general religious, administrative, or moral maxim.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) "God is great" is a generic religious formula, whereas the Diwan-i-Khas is associated with the specific paradise couplet.
- (C) "Justice is the foundation of kingship" points to kingship and justice, but the question asks for the famous Diwan-i-Khas inscription: the paradise couplet.
- (D) "Knowledge is power" is a modern aphoristic phrase and is not the couplet linked to the Red Fort's Diwan-i-Khas.
Concept
This tests Mughal architecture and court culture, especially the symbolic language attached to Shahjahan's Red Fort. RAS repeatedly asks such monument-inscription matches because they connect art history, political authority, and source-based factual recall.