Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer from the code given below the lists.
List – I (Text)
A. Ragmala
B. Rasakaumudi
C. Ragvivodh
D. Chaturdandi Prakashika
List – II (Writer)
1.

Question

Match List – I with List – II and select the correct answer from the code given below the lists.
List – I (Text)
A. Ragmala
B. Rasakaumudi
C. Ragvivodh
D. Chaturdandi Prakashika
List – II (Writer)
1. Somnath
2. Venkatraman
3. Pundrik Vitthal
4. Srikanth

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2. The four names in List – II are anglicised spellings of four Sanskrit music theorists, and the pairing runs: Ragamala was written by Pundarika Vitthala (later sixteenth century); Rasakaumudi by Srikantha (about 1575); Ragavibodha by Somanatha (1609-10); and the Chaturdandi Prakashika by Venkatamakhin, the 'Venkatraman' of the option list, in the mid-seventeenth century at the Nayaka court of Thanjavur. The fastest route to the answer is the one pair almost every candidate knows: the Chaturdandi Prakashika is Venkatamakhin's, and it is the text that sets out the seventy-two melakarta scheme still used to classify Carnatic ragas. Fixing D-2 alone disposes of the whole question, because (a) offers D-1, (c) offers D-4 and (d) offers D-3 — only (b) carries D-2. A second anchor confirms it: Ragavibodha is Somanatha's, so C-1, which again appears only in (b) and (d). UPPSC had already asked this exact match, with the same four texts and the same four writers, as Question 143 of its 2021 Paper-I; there the same pairing sat at option (a). Note the spellings in this paper are non-standard — 'Ragvivodh' for Ragavibodha, 'Pundrik Vitthal' for Pundarika Vitthala — and should not be read as different works.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Only B-4 survives here. A-2 hands Ragamala to Venkatamakhin, who wrote the Chaturdandi Prakashika; C-3 hands Ragavibodha to Pundarika Vitthala, when Ragavibodha is Somanatha's; and D-1 hands the Chaturdandi Prakashika to Somanatha. This is the trap for a candidate who remembers the four names but not which text goes with which.  (c) The serial-order decoy — 1, 2, 3, 4 straight down the list, which examiners include precisely because a guessing candidate reaches for it. Not one of the four pairs is right: Ragamala is Pundarika Vitthala's, not Somanatha's; Rasakaumudi is Srikantha's, not Venkatamakhin's; Ragavibodha is Somanatha's, not Pundarika Vitthala's; and the Chaturdandi Prakashika is Venkatamakhin's, not Srikantha's.  (d) This option does get C-1 right — Ragavibodha is indeed Somanatha's — which is what makes it tempting, but the other three pairs are swapped. Ragamala belongs to Pundarika Vitthala, not Srikantha; Rasakaumudi to Srikantha, not Venkatamakhin; and the Chaturdandi Prakashika to Venkatamakhin, not Pundarika Vitthala. The single check on D settles it.

Concept: Indian classical music has a continuous Sanskrit theoretical literature, and UPPSC tests it as text-to-author recall. The medieval and early-modern layer of that literature is concerned above all with classifying ragas — grouping scales into parent and derived families so that a performing tradition can be taught and written down. Pundarika Vitthala, a musician from the Kannada country who worked at northern courts in the later sixteenth century, wrote Ragamala along with Ragamanjari, Sadragachandrodaya and Nartananirnaya. Srikantha's Rasakaumudi, of about 1575, covers both music and dance. Somanatha's Ragavibodha of 1609-10 is remembered for its systematic notation of ragas. Venkatamakhin's Chaturdandi Prakashika, written under Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Thanjavur, produced the seventy-two melakarta framework that still organises Carnatic music.

State PCS 2022 Q91 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q91 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer