RAS question
The iron pillar inscription at Mehrauli refers to the king's conquests in:
Correct answer: (C) Vanga (Bengal) and defeating a confederacy of enemies.
The Mehrauli Iron Pillar inscription refers to king Chandra's victories in Vanga and against enemies including the Vahlikas after crossing the seven mouths of the Sindhu.
Explanation
The Mehrauli Iron Pillar inscription gives specific markers rather than a vague claim of conquest. The DHARMA edition of the Mehrauli Iron Pillar Inscription of Candra records fame won in Vanga and says that, in battle, he crossed the seven mouths of the Sindhu and defeated the Vahlikas. This fits the identification of king 'Chandra' with Chandragupta II and makes Vanga essential to the conquest geography, rather than a single-direction conquest. The inscription also presents him as a Vaishnavite ruler who established a dhvaja of Vishnu at Vishnupada. The decisive inscriptional geography is Vanga, the Sindhu passage, and the defeated enemies together.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Only Central Asia is too narrow because the inscription also refers to Vanga, while the Vahlikas appear after the Sindhu passage.
- (B) Only Southeast Asia is unsupported because neither the identification nor the DHARMA inscriptional text gives Southeast Asia as the field of conquest.
- (D) Only South India is unsupported because the stated conquests are tied to Vanga, the Sindhu, and the Vahlikas, not exclusively to the south.
Concept
Gupta-period epigraphy uses inscriptions to reconstruct political geography and royal claims. RAS repeats such material because named inscriptions often anchor chronology, dynastic identification, and territorial expansion in ancient Indian history.