Which one of the following pairs of authors and Sanskrit literary works is not correctly matched?

Correct — D, Kalidasa : Vasavadatta. Vasavadatta is a Sanskrit prose romance written by Subandhu, a writer of about the sixth or seventh century CE known for elaborate wordplay. Kalidasa did not write it. His works are the plays Abhijnanashakuntalam, Malavikagnimitram and Vikramorvashiyam, the epic poems Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava, and the lyrics Meghaduta and Ritusamhara. The name causes trouble because a princess called Vasavadatta is also the heroine of Bhasa's play Svapnavasavadattam, so three different associations attach to one name and none of them is Kalidasa.

• (a)Somadeva : Kathasaritsagara — Somadeva did compose the Kathasaritsagara, the great eleventh-century Kashmiri collection of stories drawn from the lost Brihatkatha. The pair is correct.
• (b)Ashvaghosha : Buddhacharita — Ashvaghosha wrote the Buddhacharita, a life of the Buddha in Sanskrit verse, along with the Saundarananda and the play Sariputraprakarana. The pair is correct.
• (c)Bilhana : Vikramankadevacharita — Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita, a court poem on the Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI, having travelled from Kashmir to the Deccan. The pair is correct.

Classical Sanskrit literature is examined mostly through author-and-work pairings, and a short list carries most of them. Kalidasa is the pre-eminent poet and dramatist of the Gupta age. Ashvaghosha is the Buddhist poet of the Kushana period. Banabhatta served Harshavardhana and wrote the Harshacharita and Kadambari. Vishakhadatta wrote the Mudrarakshasa, Shudraka the Mrichchhakatika, Subandhu the Vasavadatta, Bilhana the Vikramankadevacharita and Somadeva the Kathasaritsagara.

The item is built the way examiners usually build these — three sound pairs and one where a famous author is attached to a work by someone else. The safest defence is to hold each major author's own list, since recognising that Vasavadatta is missing from Kalidasa's is quicker than recalling that Subandhu wrote it. Titles that echo one another are where these questions live: Vasavadatta by Subandhu against Svapnavasavadattam by Bhasa is one such pair, and Buddhacharita by Ashvaghosha against the Vasubandhu misattribution that UPSC once planted is another.

• Vasavadatta is a prose romance by Subandhu.
• Kalidasa wrote Abhijnanashakuntalam, Malavikagnimitram, Vikramorvashiyam, Raghuvamsha, Kumarasambhava, Meghaduta and Ritusamhara.
• Ashvaghosha wrote the Buddhacharita and the Saundarananda.
• Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita on the Chalukya king Vikramaditya VI.
• Somadeva compiled the Kathasaritsagara in eleventh-century Kashmir.

• Assuming any famous Sanskrit work belongs to Kalidasa.
• Confusing Subandhu's Vasavadatta with Bhasa's Svapnavasavadattam.
• Attributing the Buddhacharita to Vasubandhu, a misattribution UPSC has used as a distractor.

A matched-pair item on Sanskrit literature, with the error planted on the most familiar name; the same list is asked across UPSC, CDS and NDA in almost identical form.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sanskrit prose romance Vasavadatta was written by

  • (a)Kalidasa
  • (b)Subandhu
  • (c)Bhasa
  • (d)Banabhatta

  Answer(b) Subandhu — Bhasa wrote the play Svapnavasavadattam, which is a different work.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?

  • (a)Banabhatta : Mudrarakshasa
  • (b)Shudraka : Mrichchhakatika
  • (c)Vishakhadatta : Harshacharita
  • (d)Bilhana : Kathasaritsagara

  Answer(b) Shudraka : Mrichchhakatika — Mudrarakshasa is by Vishakhadatta and Harshacharita by Banabhatta.