NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 15 The ‘Great King of Kings’ — LET’S EXPLORE
Book page 64 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Do you recall where the capital of the earlier Maurya and Gupta empires was located?
Answer
At Pāṭaliputra — present-day Patna, in Bihar, on the Ganga. Both the Mauryas and the Guptas ruled from there (you met it in Part 1 of this textbook, in ‘The Rise of Empires’ and ‘The Gupta Era’).
Now compare it with Harṣha’s capital.
Capital
Where
Empire
Pāṭaliputra
Lower Ganga plain, eastern India (modern Patna)
Mauryas, then Guptas
Sthāneśhvara
Modern Thanesar, Haryana
Earlier capital of the Puṣhyabhūtis
Kānyakubja (Kannauj)
Upper–middle Ganga plain, in present-day Uttar Pradesh
Harṣhavardhana, from 606 CE
Check it yourself: look at Fig. 3.3 on page 63. Kānyakubja sits on the Ganga at roughly 80°E — several hundred kilometres upstream of Patna. The centre of north Indian power has moved west.
Q2.
How do you think this shift may have shaped the sub-continent’s politics in the years to come?
Answer
Moving the centre of power upstream to Kannauj made north India’s politics far more contested — because Kannauj could be reached from three directions at once. That single fact explains the whole Tripartite Struggle.
It put the capital within reach of the west. Pāṭaliputra was tucked away in the east. Kannauj sits on the open Ganga–Yamuna plain, so a power based in Rajasthan or Malwa — the Gurjara-Pratīhāras — could march on it. That was impossible for a western power aiming at Patna.
It kept the capital within reach of the east. The Pālas of Bengal could still come up the Ganga.
It opened it to the Deccan. The Rāṣhṭrakūṭas came north across the Narmada and “briefly occupied Kannauj”, and later destroyed it.
So no one could hold it. Through the 8th and 9th centuries the three powers “repeatedly warred against each other, with fluctuating outcomes and no lasting victor.” Energy that might have built one empire was spent cancelling out three.
And it made Kannauj a prize in itself. Holding Kannauj became the mark of being paramount ruler of north India — so it was attacked because it was the capital, not only for its wealth.
Why the location matters so much: a capital in a corner is defended by geography. A capital in the middle of a rich open plain is defended only by an army. Kannauj had the best land, the best river route and the best position for trade — and no natural walls. That is a capital worth taking and hard to keep.
Tip: the chapter comes back to this on page 68 and asks you to look again at Fig. 3.3. Do it with a finger on the map: put one finger on Bhillamāla, one on Bengal, one on Mānyakheṭa, and see that all three point at the same city.