UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 55 of 149

Correct — C, A – 3, B – 1, C – 2, D – 4.

All four works in List – I are Sanskrit court biographies named after the king they praise. So the title hands you the king, the king hands you a dynasty, and the dynasty hands you the poet who sat in that court.

Ramcharita is Sandhyakarnandi's poem on Ramapala of the Palas, so A goes to 3. Navasahasankacharita is Padmagupta's poem on Sindhuraja of the Paramaras of Malwa, whose title was Navasahasanka, so B goes to 1.

That leaves the pair the codes actually fight over: Kumarpalacharita belongs to Hemchandra and Vikramankadevacharita to Bilhana. Hemchandra was the Jain scholar at the Chaulukya court of Gujarat, where Kumarpala ruled; Bilhana was court poet to Vikramaditya VI of the Chalukyas of Kalyani.

Carry away the method, not the four pairs: read the king out of the title, place the king in a dynasty, then place the poet at that king's court.

• (a)
  A – 3, B – 1, C – 4, D – 2 — This code gets Ramcharita and Navasahasankacharita right and then reads the last two rows in reverse, giving Kumarpalacharita to Bilhana and Vikramankadevacharita to Hemchandra.

  Bilhana is the poet of Vikramankadevacharita, written for Vikramaditya VI of Kalyani. Hemchandra's patron was Kumarpala in Gujarat, so his name belongs on row C, not row D.

• (b)
  A – 2, B – 1, C – 4, D – 3 — Only the Navasahasankacharita–Padmagupta link survives here. Row A is handed to Hemchandra and row D to Sandhyakarnandi, which moves both poets out of the courts they served.

  Sandhyakarnandi is the author of Ramcharita, the poem on the Pala ruler Ramapala. Once row A is fixed on him, this code fails at its very first pair and can be dropped without checking the rest.

• (d)
  A – 2, B – 3, C – 4, D – 1 — None of these four pairs holds: Ramcharita goes to Hemchandra, Navasahasankacharita to Sandhyakarnandi, Kumarpalacharita to Bilhana and Vikramankadevacharita to Padmagupta.

  Padmagupta is the author of Navasahasankacharita, composed at Sindhuraja's Paramara court in Malwa. Fixing that single pair alone rules this code out.

A charita kavya is a Sanskrit court biography: a poem written by a court scholar in praise of a reigning or recent king, in the conventions of ornate kavya rather than plain chronicle.

The title is normally built from the patron's name or royal title plus -charita, so the work advertises whom it celebrates.

The four items in this list belong to different early medieval courts — the Palas in Bengal, the Paramaras in Malwa, the Chaulukyas in Gujarat and the Chalukyas of Kalyani in the Deccan.

• Sandhyakarnandi's Ramcharita is a shlesha poem: its verses admit two readings at once, one on Rama and one on the Pala king Ramapala.
• Ramapala belonged to the Pala dynasty of Bengal and Bihar, and Ramcharita treats his recovery of Varendra.
• Padmagupta, also known as Parimala, wrote Navasahasankacharita at the court of Sindhuraja, the Paramara ruler of Malwa.
• Navasahasanka was a title of Sindhuraja, which is why the poem carries that name rather than his personal one.
• Hemchandra was a Jain polymath at the Chaulukya (Solanki) court of Gujarat, serving under Jayasimha Siddharaja and then Kumarpala.
• Hemchandra's Dvyashraya-kavya has a Prakrit portion dealing with Kumarpala, known as Kumarpalacharita.
• Bilhana was a Kashmiri poet who wrote Vikramankadevacharita on Vikramaditya VI of the Chalukyas of Kalyani.
• The closing canto of Vikramankadevacharita turns autobiographical, describing Bilhana's own Kashmir and his travels.

• The Chaulukyas of Gujarat and the Chalukyas of Kalyani have nearly the same name; separating Hemchandra from Bilhana depends on holding those two houses apart.
• The title Ramcharita invites a reading as a Ramayana retelling, which pulls attention away from its Pala patron and from Sandhyakarnandi's authorship.
• Hemchandra's work on Kumarpala also travels under the title Dvyashraya-kavya, so a memory filed under that name alone can miss the Kumarpalacharita pairing.
• Bilhana's name attaches to Vikramankadevacharita; a pairing that offers him Devichandragupta is describing a work attributed to Visakhadatta.
• In a four-row grid, verifying a pair you are certain of can eliminate codes outright — here each of the three rejected codes assigns Kumarpalacharita to Bilhana, so settling row C alone finishes the question.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Padmagupta's Navasahasankacharita was composed in honour of which ruler?

  • (a)Bhoja of the Paramaras
  • (b)Sindhuraja of the Paramaras
  • (c)Kumarpala of the Chaulukyas
  • (d)Vikramaditya VI of the Chalukyas of Kalyani
  Answerb — Navasahasanka was a title of Sindhuraja, the Paramara ruler of Malwa at whose court Padmagupta wrote, so the poem's name points straight at him.

  Bhoja (a) is the better-known Paramara but not the hero of this poem. Kumarpala (c) is the Chaulukya ruler of Gujarat celebrated by Hemchandra, and Vikramaditya VI (d) is the Kalyani Chalukya celebrated by Bilhana.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Sandhyakarnandi's Ramcharita is distinctive chiefly because

  • (a)it is a prose biography of a Pushyabhuti ruler
  • (b)its verses carry a double meaning, telling Rama's story and a Pala king's reign together
  • (c)it is a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir arranged in eight books
  • (d)it is a Prakrit grammar illustrated with dynastic verses
  Answerb — Ramcharita is built on shlesha, so a single verse can be construed as an episode of Rama's story and as an event in the reign of Ramapala of the Palas.

  Option a describes the prose form of Bana's Harshacharita on Harsha; option c describes Kalhana's Rajatarangini; option d describes the double purpose of Hemchandra's Dvyashraya-kavya, which illustrates grammar through dynastic narrative.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Vikramankadevacharita by Bilhana celebrates a ruler of which dynasty?

  • (a)Chaulukyas (Solankis) of Gujarat
  • (b)Paramaras of Malwa
  • (c)Chalukyas of Kalyani
  • (d)Palas of Bengal
  Answerc — Bilhana, a Kashmiri poet, wrote the poem for Vikramaditya VI, the Chalukya ruler of Kalyani in the Deccan.

  The Chaulukyas of Gujarat (a) are Hemchandra's patrons and the near-identical name is the whole difficulty here. The Paramaras (b) are Padmagupta's patrons at Malwa, and the Palas (d) are the dynasty of Ramapala, treated by Sandhyakarnandi.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Jain scholar Hemchandra was associated with the court of

  • (a)Ramapala
  • (b)Sindhuraja
  • (c)Kumarpala
  • (d)Vikramaditya VI
  Answerc — Hemchandra worked at the Chaulukya court of Gujarat, and Kumarpala is the ruler whose reign his Kumarpalacharita treats.

  Ramapala (a) is the Pala king of Sandhyakarnandi's Ramcharita, Sindhuraja (b) the Paramara patron of Padmagupta, and Vikramaditya VI (d) the Kalyani Chalukya patron of Bilhana. Kumarpala is the Gujarat ruler among the four names offered.