The tripartite struggle of the eighth and ninth centuries was fought for the control of which city?

The correct answer is A, Prithviraja III. The Chahamanas, known in later tradition as the Chauhans, ruled from Shakambhari and then from Ajmer, and their most famous ruler was Prithviraja III, the Rai Pithora of the ballads, who defeated Muhammad Ghori at Tarain in 1191 and was defeated and killed by him there in 1192. Option B, Vigraharaja II, was an earlier ruler of the house and is far less known than his namesake Vigraharaja IV, who took Delhi from the Tomaras. Option C, Prithviraja I, was an eleventh-century ancestor remembered only in genealogies. Option D, Vasudeva, is named in inscriptions as the founder of the line in the sixth century, but nothing of his reign is known. The question tests whether a candidate can pick the ruler of Tarain fame from similar dynastic names.

The correct answer is D, the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty. The Pratiharas held western India and Rajasthan, the natural route from Arab-held Sindh into the Ganga plain. Nagabhata I checked the Arab advance in the middle of the eighth century, and his successors kept them confined to Sindh, which is why the Arab writer Sulaiman called the Pratihara ruler the greatest enemy of the Muslims of his time. Option A is wrong because Gupta rule had ended in the sixth century, long before the Arabs reached Sindh in 712. Option B is wrong because the Cholas were a southern power whose expansion was towards Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. Option C is wrong because the Palas ruled Bengal and Bihar in the east, far from the Arab frontier, and their wars were with the Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas over Kannauj.

The correct answer is C, Maharana Kumbha. Rana Kumbha of the Sisodia house of Mewar was both a builder and a scholar: he raised the fort of Kumbhalgarh and the Vijaya Stambha at Chittorgarh and wrote on music, the Sangeet Raj being the best known of his works, along with commentaries on the Gita Govinda. Option A is wrong because Rana Sanga is remembered as the soldier who fought Babur at Khanwa in 1527. Option B is wrong because Maharana Pratap, of the later sixteenth century, is remembered for the battle of Haldighati against Akbar's army and for refusing submission, not for writing. Option D is wrong because Udai Singh is remembered for founding Udaipur after the fall of Chittor and for the siege of 1568. Kumbha is the one Mewar ruler asked about as an author.

The correct answer is C, Gopala. He was raised to the throne about 750 by the chiefs of Bengal to end a period of disorder that the Khalimpur copper plate describes with the word matsyanyaya, the law of the fishes, in which the strong devour the weak. This election is often cited as a rare instance of a king chosen by notables. Option A is wrong because Dharmapala was Gopala's son, remembered for founding the Vikramashila monastery and for installing Chakrayudha at Kannauj. Option B is wrong because Devapala, son of Dharmapala, was the greatest ruler of the house, under whom the kingdom reached its widest extent. Option D is wrong because Ramapala was the last strong Pala ruler, whose reign the Ramacharitam of Sandhyakara Nandi records, well over three centuries after the founding.

The correct answer is A, Dharmapala. The Pala rulers were the last great royal patrons of Buddhism in India, and Dharmapala founded Vikramashila in present-day Bhagalpur district of Bihar and also revived Nalanda and founded Odantapuri. From Vikramashila the scholar Atisha Dipankara went to Tibet, which is why Tibetan sources preserve so much about Pala patronage. Option B is wrong because Mihir Bhoja was a Pratihara and a worshipper of Vishnu who took the title Adivaraha. Option C is wrong because Amoghavarsha I was a Rashtrakuta who leaned towards Jainism and is remembered for the Kavirajamarga and for founding Manyakheta. Option D is wrong because Lakshmanasena belonged to the Sena house that replaced the Palas, and his court is remembered for Jayadeva and the Gita Govinda.