Match List - I with List - II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists.
List - I (Writer)
A. Trivikram Bhatta
B. Somdev
C. Jaidev
D. Kshemendra
List - II (Book)
1. Gita Govin

Question

Match List - I with List - II and select the correct answer using the code given below the lists.
List - I (Writer)
A. Trivikram Bhatta
B. Somdev
C. Jaidev
D. Kshemendra
List - II (Book)
1. Gita Govinda
2. Brihatkathamanjari
3. Nal Champu
4. Katha Sarit Sagar
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2. Trivikrama Bhatta composed the Nala-champu, also called the Damayanti-katha, in the early tenth century — the earliest surviving example of champu-kavya, the Sanskrit form that alternates ornate prose with verse. Somadeva Bhatta wrote the Kathasaritsagara, the 'Ocean of the Streams of Story', in eleventh-century Kashmir for Queen Suryavati, wife of King Ananta. Jayadeva composed the Gita Govinda, the twelfth-century Sanskrit lyric on Radha and Krishna, traditionally placed at the court of Lakshmana Sena of Bengal. Kshemendra, another Kashmiri writer of the eleventh century, produced the Brihatkathamanjari. The last two entries are the trap: both the Brihatkathamanjari and the Kathasaritsagara are Sanskrit retellings of Gunadhya's lost Brihatkatha, Kshemendra's being the terser abridgement and Somadeva's the fuller and far better known version — so a candidate who knows only that 'a Kashmiri retold the Brihatkatha' can still put the two names the wrong way round.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) It gets the second half right — Gita Govinda to Jayadeva and Brihatkathamanjari to Kshemendra — but swaps the first two writers, handing the Kathasaritsagara to Trivikrama Bhatta and the Nala-champu to Somadeva. This is the near-miss option, and the only way to reject it is to know that the champu belongs to Trivikrama Bhatta.  (c) Wrong twice over. It repeats the Trivikrama-Somadeva swap and additionally gives the Brihatkathamanjari to Jayadeva and the Gita Govinda to Kshemendra — an attribution no source supports, since the Gita Govinda is universally Jayadeva's.  (d) It opens correctly with Trivikrama Bhatta to the Nala-champu and Somadeva to the Kathasaritsagara, then reverses the last two: the Gita Govinda is Jayadeva's work, not Kshemendra's, and the Brihatkathamanjari is Kshemendra's, not Jayadeva's.

Concept: This question spans two strands of Sanskrit literature between the tenth and twelfth centuries. One is the katha or story-cycle tradition descending from Gunadhya's Brihatkatha, a vast work composed in the Paishachi dialect and now lost, which survives only through Sanskrit recensions made in Kashmir — Kshemendra's compact Brihatkathamanjari and Somadeva's expansive Kathasaritsagara. The other is kavya proper: the champu, a mixed prose-and-verse narrative of which Trivikrama Bhatta's Nala-champu is the earliest surviving specimen, and the devotional lyric, of which Jayadeva's Gita Govinda is the supreme example.

State PCS 2025 Q47 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q47 — Art & Culture PYQ with Answer