Who is the author of 'Alhakhand'?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, Jagnik. Jagnik (Jagnayak) was the bard-poet of the Chandela king Paramardi Deva ('Parmal') of Mahoba in the late 12th century, and tradition credits him with composing the Alha-Khand — also called Parmal Raso or Alha Raso. It is a cycle of heroic ballads about Alha and Udal, the Banaphar brothers who commanded Paramardi's army against Prithviraj Chauhan of Ajmer. The text Jagnik composed is itself lost; what survives is the sung oral tradition, carried by professional Alha singers across Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and the printed recensions collected in the 19th century.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Chand Bardai is the court poet of the OTHER side of the same war — he is credited with the Prithviraj Raso, the epic on Prithviraj Chauhan. Because both works belong to the same era and the same conflict, he is the most tempting wrong answer here.  (b) Rajasekhara was a Sanskrit poet-dramatist of about the 9th–10th century (Kavyamimamsa, Karpuramanjari, Balaramayana), associated with the Gurjara-Pratihara court. Wrong century, wrong language and wrong genre for a Bundeli martial ballad.  (c) Paramardi Deva is the Chandela king of Mahoba — the patron and the subject of the ballad, not its author. This is the classic patron-versus-poet trap: the ruler whose court the work celebrates is placed in the options next to the poet who actually wrote it.

Concept: Alha-Khand belongs to the vir-gatha (heroic-ballad) stream of early Hindi literature — the Adikaal, when court bards composed 'Raso' works glorifying their patron king's wars. The reader has to keep three roles apart: the hero (Alha and Udal, the Banaphar commanders), the patron (Paramardi Deva, the Chandela ruler of Mahoba), and the poet (Jagnik, the court bard). Unlike a written classic, Alha survives mainly as performance — sung in the monsoon by Alha singers, which is why its text exists in many regional versions rather than one fixed original.

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q61 — Madhya Pradesh GK PYQ with Answer