The bhajan beginning Vaishnav Jan To, a favourite prayer of Mahatma Gandhi, was composed by
- A.Narsinh Mehta
- B.Premanand Bhatt
- C.Dayaram
- D.Dalpatram
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, Narsinh Mehta. Narsinh Mehta was a fifteenth century devotional poet of Gujarat who is honoured as the Adi Kavi, the first poet of the language, and his bhajan Vaishnav Jan To lists the qualities of a true devotee, which is why Gandhi made it part of the daily prayer at his ashram. Option B, Premanand Bhatt, was a seventeenth century poet and the great master of the akhyana or recited narrative poem, remembered for Nalakhyan rather than for bhajans. Option C, Dayaram, belongs to the nineteenth century and is known for his garbi songs in the Krishna devotional tradition. Option D, Dalpatram, was a nineteenth century poet of the reform era who wrote on social questions in a plain, modern style. Only Narsinh Mehta is both the first poet and the author of this bhajan.
Read the full article: Regional Literature: Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia and Assamese Notes
Practice Questions
View allSaraswatichandra, regarded as the first major novel in Gujarati, was written by
- A.Kanhaiyalal Munshi
- B.Govardhanram Tripathi
- C.Jhaverchand Meghani
- D.Umashankar Joshi
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He published Saraswatichandra in four parts between 1887 and 1901, and the long social novel about a learned young man and the world around him is treated as the work with which the modern Gujarati novel begins.
Read the full explanation →The best known version of the Punjabi romance Heer Ranjha was composed in 1766 by
- A.Bulleh Shah
- B.Baba Farid
- C.Waris Shah
- D.Shah Muhammad
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His Heer, composed in 1766, is the version of the tragic love story of Heer and Ranjha that is still sung and quoted across Punjab, and it is the answer whenever an examiner names the qissa.
Read the full explanation →Which writer wrote the poem Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu and the novel Pinjar, and won the Jnanpith Award in 1981?
- A.Amrita Pritam
- B.Gurdial Singh
- C.Shiv Kumar Batalvi
- D.Nanak Singh
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Her poem Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu calls on the old poet of Heer to speak again over the suffering of Partition, her novel Pinjar tells the story of an abducted woman of those years, and she received the Jnanpith Award in 1981 for the collection Kagaz Te Canvas.
Read the full explanation →Who is honoured as the Adikavi of Odia literature and wrote the Mahabharata in Odia?
- A.Jagannatha Das
- B.Sarala Das
- C.Upendra Bhanja
- D.Radhanath Ray
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The fifteenth century poet composed the Odia Mahabharata, along with the Chandi Purana and the Vilanka Ramayana, and in writing the epic in the speech of ordinary people rather than in Sanskrit he earned the title Adikavi, the first poet of Odia.
Read the full explanation →The Odia novel Chha Mana Atha Guntha, translated into English as Six Acres and a Third, was written by
- A.Gopinath Mohanty
- B.Fakir Mohan Senapati
- C.Gangadhar Meher
- D.Pratibha Ray
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He is called the father of Odia fiction and of modern Odia prose and is titled Utkala Byasa Kabi, and his novel Chha Mana Atha Guntha is a sharp, ironic account of how a scheming landlord dispossesses a poor weaver couple of their small plot of land.
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