Basavanna, who composed vachanas and founded the Virashaiva or Lingayat tradition, belonged to which region?
- A.Bengal
- B.Karnataka
- C.Assam
- D.Maharashtra
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Basavanna was a minister in the Kalachuri court in twelfth-century Karnataka and led the Virashaiva or Lingayat movement, whose followers wore the linga on their body, rejected temple ritual, Brahmanical authority and caste, and composed short prose-poems called vachanas in Kannada; Akka Mahadevi and Allama Prabhu belong to the same circle. Option A, Bengal, is the region of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition of kirtan. Option C, Assam, is where Shankaradeva founded the Ekasarana dharma and established the sattras and namghars. Option D, Maharashtra, is the home of the Varkari tradition of Jnaneshwar, Namdev, Eknath and Tukaram, centred on the shrine of Vitthala at Pandharpur. Matching a saint to his region and language is the commonest form this question takes.
Read the full article: Bhakti and Sufi Movements: Saints, Orders and Ideas
Practice Questions
View allIn the context of Sufi tradition, the term 'khanqah' stood for:
- A.the Hell
- B.a graveyard
- C.a hospice
- D.the Heaven
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A khanqah was the hospice or lodge where a Sufi master lived with his disciples, taught, held assemblies of devotional music and fed whoever came to the door, whatever their faith or caste.
Read the full explanation →Which Sufi saint was called 'Mahbub-i-Ilahi'?
- A.Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti
- B.Baba Farid
- C.Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki
- D.Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya
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Mahbub-i-Ilahi means the beloved of God, and it is the title by which this Chishti master of Delhi has been known for seven centuries.
Read the full explanation →Amir Khosrow was a royal poet and a disciple of which of the following Sufi saints?
- A.Fariduddin Ganjshakar
- B.Syed Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya
- C.Shaikh Salim Chisti
- D.Muhammad Maharavi
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Amir Khusrau served as a poet at the courts of several Delhi Sultans, but his spiritual allegiance was to Nizamuddin Auliya, and he was buried beside his master.
Read the full explanation →Which Sikh Guru gave the idea of the Gurmukhi script?
- A.Guru Angad Dev
- B.Guru Amar Das
- C.Guru Ram Das
- D.Guru Nanak Dev
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The second Guru standardised and popularised Gurmukhi, the script in which the hymns of the Gurus were written down, and this made it possible to preserve the teaching of the movement in the language its followers actually spoke.
Read the full explanation →The Alvar saints of the Tamil country were devotees of which deity?
- A.Shiva
- B.Vishnu
- C.Surya
- D.Shakti
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The Alvars were the twelve Vaishnava saint-poets of the Tamil country, active roughly between the sixth and the ninth centuries, whose hymns were later gathered as the Divya Prabandham and sung in temples.
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