UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 47 of 150

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.

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

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.

Solve it by anchoring on the pair you are surest of. Gita Govinda to Jayadeva is the most familiar attribution in the set, and fixing C-1 eliminates options (c) and (d) in one stroke, since both give C-2. That leaves (a) and (b), which differ only in whether Trivikrama Bhatta or Somadeva wrote the Nala-champu. The word 'champu' is the clue — it is the form Trivikrama Bhatta is remembered for, while Somadeva's fame rests entirely on the Kathasaritsagara. That gives A-3 and option (a).

• Trivikrama Bhatta's Nala-champu (Damayanti-katha), of the early tenth century, is the earliest extant champu-kavya — a narrative alternating verse with ornate prose
• Somadeva's Kathasaritsagara, written in eleventh-century Kashmir for Queen Suryavati, is the best-known Sanskrit version of Gunadhya's lost Brihatkatha
• Kshemendra, an eleventh-century Kashmiri polymath, wrote the Brihatkathamanjari — a shorter abridgement of the same Brihatkatha — besides satires such as the Deshopadesha and the Narmamala
• Jayadeva's Gita Govinda has twelve sargas and twenty-four ashtapadis on Radha and Krishna; its ashtapadis are part of the daily ritual at the Jagannath temple in Puri
• Somadeva of the Kathasaritsagara is a different writer from the Jain scholar Somadeva Suri, author of the Yashastilaka-champu and the Nitivakyamrita

• Interchanging the Kathasaritsagara and the Brihatkathamanjari — both are Kashmiri Sanskrit versions of the same lost Brihatkatha
• Confusing Somadeva of the Kathasaritsagara with the Jain writer Somadeva Suri, whose Nitivakyamrita UPSC itself asked about in 2023
• Reading 'champu' as a place or dynasty rather than as a literary form — the form is what identifies Trivikrama Bhatta

UPPSC keeps to the four-pair Match-the-Lists format with a code, drawn from classical Sanskrit texts and their authors. UPSC now prefers the counting variant — 'how many of the above pairs are correctly matched' — over the same literary-work-and-author material.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Kathasaritsagara of Somadeva and the Brihatkathamanjari of Kshemendra are both Sanskrit versions of which earlier work?

  • (a)Gunadhya's Brihatkatha
  • (b)Bhasa's Svapnavasavadatta
  • (c)Dandin's Dashakumaracharita
  • (d)Banabhatta's Kadambari

  Answer(a) Gunadhya's Brihatkatha — composed in the Paishachi dialect and now lost, it survives chiefly through these two Kashmiri Sanskrit retellings.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs of work and author is NOT correctly matched?

  • (a)Gita Govinda — Jayadeva
  • (b)Brihatkathamanjari — Kshemendra
  • (c)Kathasaritsagara — Somadeva
  • (d)Nala-champu — Bilhana

  Answer(d) Nala-champu — Bilhana. The Nala-champu is Trivikrama Bhatta's; Bilhana wrote the Vikramankadevacharita.