How many of the following statements about Bhakti poet Namdev is/are correct? 1. He seems to have played a part in transmitting the southern Bhakti to northern India. 2. He was a rigorous monotheist and opposed caste distinctions. 3. He was a devout follower of Kabir. Select the correct answer.
- (a)1
- (b)2
- (c)3
- (d)None
Correct — B, 2. Exactly two of the three statements about Namdev hold. Statement 1 is accepted: Namdev, a Marathi saint devoted to Vithoba of Pandharpur, spent much of his later life in the north and is remembered in Punjab, where a shrine at Ghuman marks his death and where his verses entered the Sikh scriptural tradition — so he did carry the southern devotional current northwards. Statement 2 is also sound: he was a rigorous monotheist who set his one God above the divisions of temple and mosque, and he taught that anyone could be saved through devotion regardless of caste. Statement 3 is the false one, and dating alone disposes of it. Namdev is traditionally placed in the late thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century, while Kabir flourished in the fifteenth. The earlier man cannot have been the follower of the later one. Two correct statements gives the count 2.
- (a)1 — Undercounts. Both statement 1 and statement 2 stand — the northward transmission and the monotheism with its rejection of caste.
- (c)3 — Would require statement 3 to be true as well, but Namdev preceded Kabir by roughly a century and could not have followed him.
- (d)None — Too severe. Two of the three statements are the standard scholarly description of Namdev.
Namdev was a Varkari saint of Maharashtra, devoted to Vithoba at Pandharpur, who composed abhangas in Marathi and also verses preserved in the Sikh tradition. He belongs to the earlier, southern-and-western wave of bhakti and is one of the figures through whom that devotional temper reached northern India. His teaching was insistently monotheistic and set no store by caste rank or by the outward forms of either Hindu or Muslim worship.
This is a counting question, so the efficient move is to find the one statement you can demolish and then check that the other two survive. Statement 3 is the demolition target, and it falls to chronology rather than to any subtle doctrinal point — Namdev is a thirteenth and fourteenth century figure, Kabir a fifteenth century one. Note also the honest limit on statement 1: Namdev's exact dates are disputed, with proposals ranging across two centuries, and his years in Punjab are attested by tradition and by his presence in the northern devotional corpus rather than by dated documents. The claim that he had a part in transmitting bhakti northwards is the standard scholarly reading and the key accepts it, but it is a reading rather than a dated fact, and that is worth knowing.
- Namdev is traditionally placed around 1270 to 1350, though scholars differ; Kabir flourished in the fifteenth century, so Namdev is the earlier figure.
- Namdev is said to have spent much of his life in Punjab, and a shrine at the village of Ghuman marks his death.
- He taught that all can be saved equally, without regard to caste, through devotion to Vithoba.
- One of his hymns runs that the Hindu worships at the temple and the Muslim at the mosque, while he serves a Lord confined to neither.
- Accepting statement 3 because Namdev and Kabir are so often listed together as nirguna saints — listing is not chronology.
- Assuming that a Marathi saint could have had no northern following; Namdev's verses are firmly present in the northern devotional corpus.
- Answering with an option letter that matches a statement number; here the options are counts, not statement labels.
Asked in the how-many format, where the answer is a count and one datable error decides it.
Match List I with List II and select the correct answer using the codes given below the Lists: List I (Bhakti Saint) I. Namdev II. Kabir III. Ravidas IV. Sena List II (Profession) A) Barber B) Weaver C) Tailor D) Cobbler
- (a) I-B, II-C, III-A, IV-D
- (b) I-C, II-B, III-D, IV-A
- (c) I-C, II-B, III-A, IV-D
- (d) I-B, II-C, III-D, IV-A
Answer(b) I-C, II-B, III-D, IV-A
The same saints, and the point behind statement 2 of this CDS item. Namdev the tailor, Kabir the weaver, Ravidas the cobbler and Sena the barber — the bhakti sants came from artisan and service castes, which is why their rejection of caste hierarchy was lived rather than merely argued.
Which of the following statements about Saguna bhakti traditions is/are correct? 1. Saguna bhakti traditions focus on the worship of specific deities such as Vishnu or his avatars. 2. In Saguna bhakti traditions, Gods and Goddesses are conceptualised in anthropomorphic forms. Select the correct answer using the code given below:
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(c) Both 1 and 2
The doctrinal frame behind statement 2 here. Knowing what saguna devotion means is what lets you weigh a claim that a particular saint was a rigorous monotheist, and where in the spectrum his devotion to a named deity sits.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Namdev, the bhakti saint, was chiefly devoted to which deity?
- (a)Vithoba of Pandharpur
- (b)Jagannath of Puri
- (c)Venkateswara of Tirupati
- (d)Ranganatha of Srirangam
Answer(a) Vithoba of Pandharpur — the focus of the Varkari tradition of Maharashtra.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Arrange these bhakti figures from earliest to latest.
- (a)Kabir, Namdev, Tukaram
- (b)Namdev, Kabir, Tukaram
- (c)Tukaram, Namdev, Kabir
- (d)Kabir, Tukaram, Namdev
Answer(b) Namdev, Kabir, Tukaram — Namdev in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Kabir in the fifteenth, Tukaram in the seventeenth.