Books and Authors Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Kumarasambhava is a composition of Kalidasa.

Kalidasa, the classical Sanskrit poet and dramatist traditionally linked with the Gupta period and with Ujjain, wrote the epic poem Kumarasambhava (The Birth of Kumara) on the marriage of Shiva and Parvati and the birth of their son Kartikeya. His other works include Raghuvamsha, Meghaduta and the play Abhijnanashakuntalam.

Haribhadra was a Jain scholar and author, Kshemendra an eleventh-century Kashmiri poet known for the Brihatkathamanjari, and Shudraka the author of the play Mrichchhakatika.

Answer: A

Chandayan was composed by Mulla Daud.

Mulla Daud wrote Chandayan in 1379 in the Awadhi language. It tells the love story of Lorik and Chanda and is regarded as the first of the Sufi premakhyan (romance) poems in Hindi, the tradition later continued by Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Padmavat.

Amir Khusro was a poet of the Delhi Sultanate who wrote in Persian and Hindavi but not Chandayan. Al-Hajjaj was the Umayyad governor of Iraq, and Dost Mohammad Khan the founder of Bhopal state; neither has any connection with the poem.

Answer: B

Abhijnana Shakuntalam was translated into English by Sir William Jones.

Jones, the judge and orientalist who founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, published his English translation, Sacontala, or the Fatal Ring, in 1789. It made Kalidasa famous in Europe and impressed Goethe.

Charles Wilkins translated the Bhagavad Gita (1785), Warren Hastings was the Governor-General who sponsored such work, and Jonathan Duncan founded the Sanskrit College at Benares.

Answer: B

The key gives Padmanabha.

I could not find a source for a work called Veerbhadra Champu, so the author is not independently confirmed. A Padmanabha is recorded at the court of the Tomar king Viramdeva of Gwalior as the author of the Yasodharacarita, so the name is at least connected to the Gwalior region that the paper's Madhya Pradesh section covers, but I cannot say it is the same man.

Beesaldev and Kumarpal are names of rulers, and Bilhana is known for the Vikramankadevacharita, so none of them is a likely author of a champu.

Answer: C

The Agaria was written by Verrier Elwin.

Elwin's ethnography The Agaria (1942) describes the iron-smelting tribe of the Maikal hills in Mandla and neighbouring districts, their furnaces, myths and way of life. Elwin also wrote The Baiga and later became adviser on tribal affairs to the Government of India.

K.S. Singh edited the People of India project, S.C. Dube wrote Indian Village, and Alice Ekka was a Hindi writer from Jharkhand. None of them wrote The Agaria.

Answer: C

'Anand Raghunandan' was written by Vishwanath Singh.

Maharaja Vishwanath Singh of Rewa, a nineteenth-century ruler and poet, wrote 'Anand Raghunandan', a drama on the story of Rama. It is often described as the first original play in Hindi (in Brajbhasha), which gives Rewa an important place in the history of Hindi drama.

The other names are not associated with this nineteenth-century royal drama.

Answer: B

Bhavishyat Katha (Bhavisayattakaha) was written by Dhanpal.

Dhanapala, a Jain poet writing in Apabhramsha around the tenth century, composed the Bhavisayattakaha, the tale of the merchant Bhavisayatta, one of the important works of Apabhramsha literature.

Bhartrihari was the Sanskrit poet of the Shatakatraya, and Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh and Shrikant Verma were modern Hindi poets of Madhya Pradesh, none of whom wrote this work.

Answer: D

The pair not correctly matched is Island of Lost Girls - Kunal Basu.

Island of Lost Girls (2015) is a novel by Manjula Padmanabhan, a sequel to her Escape. Kunal Basu is the author of novels such as The Opium Clerk and The Japanese Wife.

The other three pairs are correct. The Burning Forest (2016) is Nandini Sundar's account of the conflict in Bastar. One Indian Girl (2016) is a novel by Chetan Bhagat. Jinnah Often Came to Our House (2015) is a novel by the former diplomat Kiran Doshi.

Answer: B

'Durgesh Nandini' was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee.

Durgeshnandini (1865) was Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's first Bengali novel, a historical romance set in the time of the Mughal-Pathan wars in Bengal. Bankim later wrote Anandamath, which contains 'Vande Mataram'.

Rabindranath Tagore and Hemchandra Bandopadhyay were other Bengali writers, and Devendranath Tagore was a religious reformer, not this novel's author.

Answer: B

The wrongly matched pair is Bhawani Prasad - Geet Farosh, Satpura Ke Ghane Jungal, Himtarngini.

Bhawani Prasad Mishra wrote Geet Farosh and the poem 'Satpura ke Ghane Jungle', but Himtarangini (printed 'Himtarngini') is by Makhanlal Chaturvedi, which won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955.

The other pairs are correct. Harishankar Parsai wrote Hanste Hain Rote Hain and Rani Nagfani Ki Kahani; Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh wrote Chand Ka Munh Tedha Hai (printed 'terra') and Kath Ka Sapna; and Keshavdas wrote Rasikpriya and Kavipriya.