Krishnadevaraya, a king of Vijayanagara, composed a work on statecraft known as Amuktamalyada in

Correct — A, Telugu. The Amuktamalyada is a Telugu poem by Krishnadevaraya, who ruled Vijayanagara from 1509 to 1529. Its narrative frame is the story of Andal, the Vaishnava saint-poet of the Tamil country, and the title refers to her — the one who gave the garland after wearing it. Embedded in the poem is a substantial passage of advice on statecraft, on the duties of a king towards forts, forests, revenue, ministers and subjects, and it is that passage which makes the work a source for historians of the empire. Krishnadevaraya was a patron of Telugu letters and of the eight poets known as the Ashtadiggajas at his court, and Telugu was the court's literary language.

• (b)Kannada — Kannada was widely used in the Vijayanagara territories and produced its own literature, but the Amuktamalyada is not a Kannada work.
• (c)Tamil — Tamil supplies the poem's subject, since Andal belongs to the Tamil Alvar tradition, which makes this the most tempting wrong answer. The subject is Tamil; the language of composition is not.
• (d)Sanskrit — Sanskrit was the language of much Vijayanagara scholarship and of Krishnadevaraya's own Sanskrit works, such as the Jambavati Kalyanam, but the Amuktamalyada is in Telugu.

Krishnadevaraya's reign is treated as the high point of Vijayanagara, both in territorial reach and in cultural patronage. Telugu literature flourished under him, and he is remembered as Andhra Bhoja for it. The Amuktamalyada is at once a devotional narrative and a manual of kingship, and its political advice — on keeping forts in repair, on treating the forest peoples, on taxation that does not exhaust the peasantry, on employing brahmanas in high office — is quoted regularly in accounts of Vijayanagara administration. Foreign visitors including Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz described his capital in the same decades.

The trap here is that the poem's subject and its language belong to different literary worlds. Andal is a Tamil saint, so a candidate reasoning from the story reaches for Tamil. Reason instead from the court: Krishnadevaraya's literary patronage was overwhelmingly in Telugu, the Ashtadiggajas were Telugu poets, and he himself wrote in Telugu as well as Sanskrit. A second useful anchor is that the Amuktamalyada is invariably cited alongside the phrase Telugu work on statecraft, which is how examiners have set it before.

• The Amuktamalyada is a Telugu work by Krishnadevaraya, who ruled Vijayanagara from 1509 to 1529.
• It narrates the story of Andal, the Tamil Vaishnava saint, and contains a section of advice on statecraft.
• Krishnadevaraya patronised the eight Telugu poets known as the Ashtadiggajas and was called Andhra Bhoja.
• He also composed in Sanskrit, including the Jambavati Kalyanam.
• Portuguese visitors Domingo Paes and Fernao Nuniz left accounts of Vijayanagara in and around his reign.

• Answering Tamil because the poem's subject is a Tamil saint.
• Confusing the Amuktamalyada with Krishnadevaraya's Sanskrit compositions.
• Assuming the Vijayanagara court's literary language must be Kannada because the capital lay in the Kannada country.

Asked as a language-of-composition item where the work's subject belongs to a different linguistic tradition from its language.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The eight Telugu poets patronised at Krishnadevaraya's court were known as

  • (a)the Navaratnas
  • (b)the Ashtadiggajas
  • (c)the Alvars
  • (d)the Nayanars

  Answer(b) the Ashtadiggajas — the eight elephants of the directions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Amuktamalyada takes its narrative from the life of

  • (a)Andal
  • (b)Meerabai
  • (c)Akka Mahadevi
  • (d)Lal Ded

  Answer(a) Andal — the Vaishnava saint-poet of the Tamil Alvar tradition.