Advaita Vedanta, the doctrine that Brahman alone is real and the world is maya, was propounded by whom?

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.