Consider the following pairs: Literary Work — Author 1. Rigarthadipika : Madhava Yogi 2. Kataka : Venkata Madhava 3. Damayanti-Katha : Trivikrama Bhatta 4. Yashastilaka Champu : Somadeva How many pairs given above are correctly matched?

Correct — B, 2. Pairs 3 and 4 are sound. The Damayanti-katha is the other name of Trivikrama Bhatta's Nala-champu, the tenth-century champu retelling of the Nala and Damayanti story from the Mahabharata, and the Yashastilaka Champu was written by the Jain scholar Somadeva Suri in 959 CE at the Rashtrakuta court. Pairs 1 and 2 are the same two names swapped. The Rgartha-dipika is the Rigveda commentary of Venkata Madhava, one of the pre-Sayana exegetes placed somewhere between the tenth and twelfth centuries; the Kataka, better known as the Amrita-kataka, is a commentary on the Valmiki Ramayana by Madhava Yogin, a much later South Indian scholar. Give each work back to its own author and exactly two of the four pairs survive.

• (a)1 — Would leave only one sound pair, but the Nala-champu and the Yashastilaka Champu are both attached to the right men here. Trivikrama Bhatta and Somadeva are among the best-documented champu authors in Sanskrit.
• (c)3 — Needs one of the first two pairs to be right. Both fail together, because the mismatch is a single swap: Madhava Yogin wrote on the Ramayana, Venkata Madhava on the Rigveda, and the item prints each name against the other's work.
• (d)4 — Claims all four are matched. The two Vedic-and-epic commentaries are crossed, so four is not available whatever view one takes of the champu pairs.

Two different kinds of Sanskrit writing sit in this list. A champu is a composition that alternates verse and prose, and it was the fashionable narrative form of the tenth century — Trivikrama Bhatta's Nala-champu and Somadeva's Yashastilaka Champu are its two standard specimens. The other two titles are commentaries, the working literature of scholarship: the Rgartha-dipika glosses the Rigveda, and the Kataka glosses the Ramayana.

Pair-matching items are built by swapping, not by inventing, so the productive question is never 'have I heard of this?' but 'which two entries could have been exchanged?'. Here the two authors are called Madhava Yogin and Venkata Madhava, near-identical names, which is precisely why the examiner chose them. The Kataka is said to be named after the kataka nut, which was used to settle muddy water — a commentary that clarifies a difficult text. Fix that image and the Ramayana commentary stops drifting towards the Veda.

• The Rgartha-dipika is Venkata Madhava's commentary on the Rigveda; he is one of the pre-Sayana commentators, placed roughly between the tenth and twelfth centuries.
• The Kataka, or Amrita-kataka, is a commentary on the Valmiki Ramayana by Madhava Yogin, a South Indian scholar of a far later date.
• The Damayanti-katha is Trivikrama Bhatta's Nala-champu, a tenth-century champu on the Nala and Damayanti episode.
• The Yashastilaka Champu was composed by the Jain writer Somadeva Suri in 959 CE.
• A champu mixes verse with prose; Sayana's fourteenth-century bhashya is the best-known Rigveda commentary, written after Venkata Madhava.

• Treating Madhava Yogin and Venkata Madhava as one person because both names carry Madhava.
• Assuming a work with dipika in its title must be a poetic composition; the word means a lamp and marks a commentary.
• Answering 4 on a pair set because every title and every author is individually genuine.

A how-many-pairs item where the wrong pairs are made by exchanging two authors with similar names, not by inventing a false one.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Nala-champu, also known as Damayanti-katha, was composed by

  • (a)Somadeva Suri
  • (b)Trivikrama Bhatta
  • (c)Bana Bhatta
  • (d)Dandin

  Answer(b) Trivikrama Bhatta — a tenth-century champu on the Nala and Damayanti story.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which scholar wrote the best-known and most complete commentary on the Rigveda in the fourteenth century?

  • (a)Skandasvamin
  • (b)Venkata Madhava
  • (c)Sayana
  • (d)Uvata

  Answer(c) Sayana — written at the Vijayanagara court; Venkata Madhava is one of the earlier commentators.