Religions and Philosophy of India: Schools and PYQs

The correct answer is D, A - 4, B - 3, C - 2, D - 1. Ramanuja taught Vishishtadvaita or qualified non dualism, in which souls and matter are real but exist as attributes of Brahman. Madhvacharya taught Dvaita, a thoroughgoing dualism in which god and the individual soul remain eternally distinct. Nimbarka taught Dvaitadvaita or bhedabheda, holding that difference and non difference are both real. Vallabhacharya taught Shuddhadvaita, pure non dualism, in which Brahman is real and untouched by maya. Option A is wrong because it gives Ramanuja Dvaitadvaita, which belongs to Nimbarka. Option B is wrong because it gives Ramanuja Dvaita and Madhvacharya Shuddhadvaita, reversing the two positions that are most often confused. Option C is wrong because it pairs the four teachers with the philosophies in the order in which the lists happen to be printed, which is the trap in every match the list question of this kind.

The correct answer is C, Purva Mimamsa. Purva Mimamsa is the school founded by Jaimini, which treats the karma kanda or ritual portion of the Vedas as authoritative and holds that liberation follows from the correct performance of Vedic duty. Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara are its two great commentators, and the school divides into the Bhatta and the Prabhakara traditions after them. Option A, Lokayata, is the materialist Charvaka school, which denies the Vedas altogether and therefore cannot claim either thinker. Option B, Madhyamika, is a Mahayana Buddhist school associated with Nagarjuna and his doctrine of shunyata, from a wholly different tradition. Option D, Uttara Mimamsa, is another name for Vedanta, the school of the jnana kanda and of the Upanishads, whose commentators are Shankaracharya, Ramanuja and Madhvacharya; it is the strongest distractor because the two Mimamsas share a name.

The correct answer is D, Gautam Buddha. The eightfold path or ashtangika marga is the fourth of the noble truths preached by the Buddha in his first sermon at Sarnath, and it names the middle way between indulgence and mortification: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Option A, Shankaracharya, taught Advaita Vedanta, in which liberation comes from the knowledge that Brahman alone is real; he set out no eightfold path. Option B, Mahavir Swami, taught the triratna of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct and five great vows, so his scheme is threefold and fivefold, not eightfold. Option C, Ramanuja, taught Vishishtadvaita and the path of devotion or prapatti. Candidates also confuse this path with the eight limbs of Patanjali's yoga, which are yama to samadhi and belong to a different tradition.

The correct answer is B, A-4, B-3, C-1, D-2. Nyaya is the school of logic and holds that liberation follows from correct reasoning, so it pairs with logical thinking. Mimamsa treats the ritual portion of the Vedas as binding and holds that salvation comes from performing Vedic rituals. Samkhya teaches that bondage ends with the acquisition of real knowledge, namely the discrimination of purusha from prakriti. Vedanta rests on the Upanishads and holds that liberation comes from knowledge of the self as identical with Brahman. Option A is wrong because it assigns knowledge of the self to Nyaya and logical thinking to Mimamsa, reversing both. Option C is wrong because it gives Nyaya the acquisition of real knowledge, which belongs to Samkhya. Option D is wrong because it makes Nyaya the school of Vedic ritual, a pairing that belongs to Mimamsa alone.

The correct answer is B, Kanada. Kanada, also called Uluka, composed the Vaisheshika Sutra and taught that the material world is built of indivisible atoms called paramanu, which combine to form the objects of experience; the school also classifies reality into categories or padarthas and is treated as the companion of Nyaya in logic and physics. Option A, Kapila, founded Samkhya, the oldest of the six schools, which explains the world through the dualism of purusha, the conscious principle, and prakriti, the material principle. Option C, Jaimini, founded Purva Mimamsa, the school of Vedic ritual, whose commentators were Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara. Option D, Patanjali, compiled the Yoga Sutra and set out the eight limbs of yoga from yama to samadhi. Papers most often switch Kapila and Kanada because the names begin alike, so fix the pair atom with Kanada firmly.

The correct answer is D, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. The Ahmadiyya movement was founded in 1889 at Qadian in the Punjab by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, and it is one of the religious movements of modern India that grew out of the reformist debates of the nineteenth century, drawing on both Islamic tradition and the liberal ideas of the age. Option A, Mir Nisar Ali, better known as Titu Mir, led a peasant movement in Bengal in the Tariqah i Muhammadiya tradition and died in 1831. Option B, Haji Shariatullah, founded the Faraizi movement in eastern Bengal early in the nineteenth century, calling on Muslims to give up practices he held to be un Islamic. Option C, Shah Waliullah, was the eighteenth century scholar of Delhi whose writings shaped later reform, and he belongs to a century before the date in the question, which is the easiest way to eliminate him.

The correct answer is C, Vardhamana Mahavira. Mahavira was the twenty fourth and last of the Tirthankaras, born at Kundagrama near Vaishali, who renounced the world at thirty, attained kaivalya after twelve years of austerity and attained nirvana at Pavapuri in Bihar. He added brahmacharya to the four vows already taught, making the five great vows of Jainism, and the doctrines of anekantavada and syadvada are associated with him. Option A, Rishabhanatha, also called Adinath, was the first Tirthankara and is mentioned in the Rigveda and the Bhagavata tradition. Option B, Parshvanatha, was the twenty third Tirthankara and is the immediate predecessor of Mahavira, which makes him the commonest wrong answer here. Option D, Neminatha, was the twenty second Tirthankara. Remember the three in order: Rishabhanatha first, Parshvanatha twenty third, Mahavira twenty fourth.

The correct answer is A, Shankaracharya. Shankaracharya expounded Advaita or non dualism, in which Brahman alone is real, the world of appearance is maya and the individual soul is not different from Brahman; he wrote commentaries on the Brahma Sutra, the principal Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, and is credited with establishing monastic centres in the four quarters of the country. Option B, Ramanuja, taught Vishishtadvaita or qualified non dualism, in which souls and matter are real as attributes of Brahman, and he made devotion central. Option C, Madhvacharya, taught Dvaita, an outright dualism in which god and soul are eternally separate, the position furthest from Advaita. Option D, Nimbarka, taught Dvaitadvaita, in which difference and non difference are both real. These four are the standard option set for every Vedanta question, so the four pairs must be learnt together.

The correct answer is D, Kanishka. The fourth Buddhist council met in Kashmir under the patronage of the Kushana ruler Kanishka, and it is remembered because the assembly divided into the Hinayana and Mahayana schools; the proceedings were in Sanskrit, and Vasumitra presided with Ashvaghosha associated with it. Option A, Ajatashatru, patronised the first council at Rajgir immediately after the death of the Buddha, where the Vinaya and the Sutta were recited and settled. Option B, Ashoka, patronised the third council at Pataliputra, which completed the canon with the Abhidhamma and sent out missions to Sri Lanka and beyond, and he is the strongest distractor because he is the ruler most associated with Buddhism. Option C, Kalashoka, patronised the second council at Vaishali, where the sangha first split into the Sthaviravadins and the Mahasanghikas.

The correct answer is B, Charvaka. Charvaka, also called Lokayata and attributed to Brihaspati, rejects the authority of the Vedas, denies rebirth and a soul surviving death and holds that perception alone is a valid means of knowledge, so it is classed as nastika or heterodox along with Buddhism and Jainism. The six orthodox or astika schools, known together as the shad darshana, are Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa and Vedanta. Option A, Nyaya, founded by Gautama, is the orthodox school of logic and the four pramanas. Option C, Samkhya, founded by Kapila, is the oldest of the six and explains the world by purusha and prakriti. Option D, Mimamsa, founded by Jaimini, upholds the ritual portion of the Vedas. Remember that astika and nastika are decided only by the attitude to the Vedas, not by belief in god.