Who among the following is the hero of the Sanskrit historical poem, the 'Ramacharita' written by Sandhyakar Nandi?

Correct — A. The Ramacharita of Sandhyakara Nandi, a poet at the Pala court, takes the Pala king Ramapala as its hero.

It is a shlesha kavya: every verse reads twice, once as the story of Rama of Ayodhya and once as the reign of Ramapala. The double reading is the point of the title.

Read as history, its subject is Ramapala's recovery of Varendra after the Kaivarta revolt, which fixes option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Dharmapala — Dharmapala was an earlier and more celebrated Pala ruler, credited with founding Vikramashila. Fame is the trap — the poet wrote about the king he served, not the greatest of the line.
• (c)
  Devapala — Devapala carried Pala power to its widest reach in the ninth century. He belongs to the dynasty but not to this poem.
• (d)
  Gopala — Gopala founded the Pala dynasty in the eighth century. A founder is a natural guess for the hero of a court poem, but the Ramacharita treats the later recovery of Varendra.

Court poetry is one of the few narrative sources for early medieval Indian dynasties, and the exam tests the poet-and-patron pair rather than the literature.

Sandhyakara Nandi's Ramacharita works by shlesha, deliberate double meaning, so a single Sanskrit verse tells the Ramayana and the reign of Ramapala at the same time.

As history it records the Kaivarta rebellion in Varendra, the loss of that region to the Palas, and Ramapala's recovery of it. The Palas ruled Bengal and Bihar from the eighth century and were major patrons of Buddhism.

Key facts

• Ramacharita is a Sanskrit poem by Sandhyakara Nandi whose hero is the Pala king Ramapala.
• It is a shlesha kavya, carrying the story of Rama of Ayodhya and of Ramapala at once.
• The poem describes the Kaivarta revolt in Varendra and Ramapala's recovery of that region.
• Gopala founded the Pala dynasty, and Dharmapala and Devapala were among its most powerful rulers.

Common traps

• Choosing the best-known king of a dynasty instead of the one the poet actually served
• Reading the title Ramacharita as a work about Rama of Ayodhya alone

No directly related past PYQ was found.