The Alvar saints of the Tamil country were devotees of which deity?
- A.Shiva
- B.Vishnu
- C.Surya
- D.Shakti
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Vishnu. 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. Option A is the standard trap: the devotees of Shiva in the same region and the same centuries were the sixty-three Nayanars, and questions often swap the two groups. Options C and D are wrong because neither Surya nor Shakti had a comparable Tamil movement of this kind, though local cults existed. Two further details are worth remembering: Andal was the one woman among the Alvars and Karaikkal Ammaiyar among the Nayanars, and these singers composed in Tamil rather than Sanskrit, which is why the Bhakti movement is said to have begun in the south and travelled north.
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
Show answer
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
Show answer
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
Show answer
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
Show answer
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 →Who propounded the philosophy of Advaita or non-dualism?
- A.Ramanujacharya
- B.Madhvacharya
- C.Shankaracharya
- D.Vallabhacharya
Show answer
Writing in the eighth century, he argued that Brahman alone is real, that the individual soul is not different from Brahman, and that the world as ordinarily perceived is the work of maya; this is Advaita, non-dualism.
Read the full explanation →