With reference to ancient Indian History, consider the following pairs:Literary WorkAuthorDevichandr

Question

With reference to ancient Indian History, consider the following pairs:Literary WorkAuthorDevichandraguptaBilhanaHammira-MahakavyaNayachandra SuriMilinda-panhaNagarjunaNitivakyamritaSomadeva SuriHow many of the above pairs are correctly matched?

Accepted Answer

Devichandragupta - Vishakadatta. Hence pair 1 is not correctly matched.Hammira-Mahakavya - Nayachandra Suri. Hence pair 2 is correctly matched.Milinda-panha - Nagarjuna. Hence pair 3 is not correctly matched.Nitivakyamrita - Somadeva Suri. Hence pair 4 is correctly matched.For Clarification: The Indian philosopher Acharya Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) was the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism and arguably the most influential Buddhist thinker/philosopher. Whereas the old NCERT Ancient India book by R.S. Sharma mentions that Menander, who was an Indo-Greek Ruler (165-145 B.C.), also known as Milinda, was converted to Buddhism by Nagasena (who was also known as Nagarjuna). He asked many questions to Nagasena which were recorded in a book called Milinda Panho.UPSC has asked a question in Prelims 1997: Milinda Panho is in the form of dialogue between King Milind and which Buddhist monk? (a) Nagasena (b) Nagarjuna (c) Nagbhatta (d) Kumarilbhatta. According to UPSC the answer was Nagasena. So when UPSC in this particular question distinguished Nagasena with Nagarjuna, then we should also consider Nagasena different from Nagarjuna. That is why we have given the answer as B.Source Attribution: Ancient India RS Sharma, AL Basham's Wonder that was India