Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the codes given below :
List – I
A. Mulla Daud
B. Damodar Kavi
C. Somnath
D. Amir Khusro
List – II
1. Chandayan
2. Ashiqa
3. Padmavati

Question

Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer using the codes given below :
List – I
A. Mulla Daud
B. Damodar Kavi
C. Somnath
D. Amir Khusro
List – II
1. Chandayan
2. Ashiqa
3. Padmavati Katha
4. Rag Vibodh
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, A-1, B-3, C-4, D-2. Three of the four pairs are firmly attested and they settle the code on their own. Mulla (Maulana) Daud wrote the Chandayan, composed in 1379 in Awadhi — the earliest surviving Sufi premakhyan, or love-allegory, in a north Indian vernacular, which retells the folk romance of Laurik and Chanda in the Persian masnavi form so that the lovers' longing stands for the soul's longing for God. Amir Khusrau wrote the Ashiqa, the popular name of his Persian masnavi Duval Rani–Khizr Khan (1316), on the love of Alauddin Khalji's son Khizr Khan for Deval Devi, daughter of Raja Karan of Gujarat. Somnath (Somanatha) wrote the Rag Vibodh (Ragavibodha, 1609), a Sanskrit treatise on music — a pairing UPPSC itself confirmed in its 2021 paper, where the official key matched Raga Vibodh with Somanath. Fixing those three leaves Padmavati Katha for Damodar Kavi, giving A-1, B-3, C-4, D-2. Honest note: the attribution of a Padmavati Katha to Damodar Kavi follows the examiner's source and is far less widely documented than the other three, so treat it as the residual of the match rather than as an independently memorised fact.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) It gets Mulla Daud and Damodar Kavi right but swaps the last two. It assigns Ashiqa to Somnath and Rag Vibodh to Amir Khusrau. Ashiqa is Amir Khusrau's Persian masnavi on Khizr Khan and Deval Devi, and Rag Vibodh is Somanatha's Sanskrit music treatise, so both pairs are inverted.  (c) Every pair is wrong. It makes Mulla Daud the author of Ashiqa, Damodar Kavi of Rag Vibodh, Somnath of Chandayan and Amir Khusrau of Padmavati Katha. The single check of Mulla Daud against Chandayan — the best-known pairing on the list — eliminates this option immediately.  (d) This is the lazy 1-2-3-4 sequence. It correctly gives Chandayan to Mulla Daud but then hands Ashiqa to Damodar Kavi and Rag Vibodh to Amir Khusrau. Khusrau's authorship of Ashiqa is exactly the anchor that rules this out.

Concept: The list mixes two distinct literary traditions. The first is the Sufi premakhyan — long allegorical romances written in Awadhi by Sufi poets, in which an earthly love story carries a mystical meaning. Maulana Daud's Chandayan (1379) begins the tradition; Qutban's Mrigavati (1503), Jayasi's Padmavat and Manjhan's Madhumalati (1545) continue it. The second is the Persian court masnavi of Amir Khusrau, the Delhi Sultanate's most prolific poet, whose Ashiqa is a rare instance of a contemporary court romance built around living people. Alongside both runs a third, quieter stream — Sanskrit and later Persian treatises on music theory, of which Somanatha's Ragavibodha (1609) is one, sitting between Sarangadeva's Sangita Ratnakara and Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika.

State PCS 2019 Q53 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q53 — History PYQ with Answer