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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Of all the events that had a singular being on the history of India, Harsha’s death in 647 A.D. is significant. Why? Explain.

  • UPSC 1996
  • Guptas, Vakatakas and Vardhanas

The claim rests on a specific reading of political history: that Harsha's death removed the last figure capable of holding the Gangetic heartland together under a single sovereignty, and that everything which followed — regional fragmentation, endemic warfare among Rajput houses, and eventual susceptibility to invasion — flows from that one event. Whether this verdict…

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What the full answer covers

  • Harsha's Position Before 647
  • Why His Death Is Treated as a Watershed
  • The Revisionist Counter-Reading

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