Match List I with List II.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A)-(III), (B)-(I), (C)-(II), (D)-(IV)

The correct answer is Option (3) → (A)-(III), (B)-(I), (C)-(II), (D)-(IV)

The correct match is:

Explanation:

There were five major political centres in the Mauryan empire. The regions included within the empire were just too diverse. Imagine the contrast between the hilly terrain of Afghanistan and the coast of Orissa. It is likely that administrative control was strongest in areas around the capital and the provincial centres. These centres were carefully chosen, both Taxila and Ujjayini being situated on important long-distance trade routes, while Suvarnagiri (literally, the golden mountain) was possibly important for tapping the gold mines of Karnataka.

Initially, the capital of Magadha was Rajagaha, known as the "house of the king" in Prakrit, situated among hills in present-day Rajgir, Bihar. Subsequently, in the fourth century BCE, the capital was relocated to Pataliputra, the present-day city of Patna.

There were five major political centres in the empire – the capital Pataliputra and the provincial centres of Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali and Suvarnagiri, all mentioned in Asokan inscriptions. If we examine the content of these inscriptions, we find virtually the same message engraved everywhere– from the present-day North West Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, to Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Uttarakhand in India. Could this vast empire have had a uniform administrative system? Historians have increasingly come to realise that this is unlikely.

The Sudarshana lake was an artificial reservoir in Girnar, Gujarat.We know about it from a rock inscription (c. second century CE) in Sanskrit, composed to record the achievements of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman. The inscription mentions that the lake, with embankments and water channels, was built by a local governor during the rule of the Mauryas.