UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 53 of 150

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.

• (a)A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4 — 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)A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3 — 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)A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 — 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.

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.

Long match-lists are best cracked by anchoring, not by recalling all four. Find the pair you are certain of, use it to knock out options, then repeat. Here the two anchors almost every serious candidate holds are Mulla Daud–Chandayan and Amir Khusrau–Ashiqa. Applying the first leaves (a), (b) and (d); applying the second — Khusrau must take 2, not 4 — leaves only (b). You never have to know what Damodar Kavi wrote. The set trap is the pull of 'Padmavati Katha' towards Malik Muhammad Jayasi, whose Awadhi Padmavat is the famous Padmavati text of the period; Jayasi is not in List I at all, so a candidate who reaches for him is being answered by a name that was never offered.

• Chandayan — Maulana (Mulla) Daud, 1379, in Awadhi: the first Sufi premakhyan in a north Indian vernacular, on the love of Laurik and Chanda.
• The premakhyan line after Daud: Mrigavati by Qutban (1503), Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Madhumalati by Manjhan (1545).
• Ashiqa — Amir Khusrau's Persian masnavi Duval Rani–Khizr Khan (1316), on Khizr Khan, son of Alauddin Khalji, and Deval Devi of Gujarat.
• Amir Khusrau's other major works include Qiran-us-Sadain, Miftah-ul-Futuh, Khazain-ul-Futuh (Tarikh-i-Alai), Nuh Sipihr and Tughlaq Nama; he was a disciple of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya.
• Rag Vibodh (Ragavibodha) — Somanatha, 1609, a Sanskrit work on music theory; UPPSC's own 2021 key pairs Raga Vibodh with Somanath.
• The Damodar Kavi–Padmavati Katha pairing rests on the examiner's source and is not as well documented as the other three; in the exam it is reached by elimination.

• Mixing up Padmavati Katha with Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Awadhi Padmavat — different work, and Jayasi is not even in the list.
• Attributing the invention of the sitar and the tabla to Amir Khusrau. These are later traditions, not documented facts; what is securely his is a large body of Persian poetry and a formative role in qawwali.
• Assuming Chandayan is a Sanskrit text because of the name. It is Awadhi, and its form is the Persian masnavi.

UPPSC asks medieval literature almost exclusively as author-to-text match-lists or NOT-correctly-matched pairs, and repeats the same small canon across years; UPSC prefers a single question that tests one attribution or one thematic claim about a text, so the payoff is in memorising the canon as pairs.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Awadhi Sufi premakhyan 'Chandayan', composed in 1379, was written by

  • (a)Malik Muhammad Jayasi
  • (b)Maulana Daud
  • (c)Qutban
  • (d)Manjhan

  Answer(b) Maulana Daud — his Chandayan is the earliest surviving Sufi love-allegory in a north Indian vernacular; Qutban, Jayasi and Manjhan wrote later works in the same tradition.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Amir Khusrau's masnavi known as 'Ashiqa' narrates the love story of

  • (a)Laurik and Chanda
  • (b)Ratansen and Padmavati
  • (c)Khizr Khan and Deval Devi
  • (d)Baz Bahadur and Rupmati

  Answer(c) Khizr Khan and Deval Devi — the poem, formally titled Duval Rani–Khizr Khan (1316), is about Alauddin Khalji's son and the daughter of Raja Karan of Gujarat; Laurik and Chanda belong to the Chandayan and Ratansen and Padmavati to Jayasi's Padmavat.