Varna Ratnakara, regarded as the first prose work in Maithili, was written by whom?
- A.Vidyapati
- B.Chanda Jha
- C.Jyotirishwar Thakur
- D.Harimohan Jha
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is C, Jyotirishwar Thakur. His Varna Ratnakara, a fourteenth century work, is counted as the earliest prose composition in Maithili and indeed one of the earliest in any modern Indian language. It is written as a series of descriptive catalogues, of the city, the court, the seasons, the royal retinue and the cremation ground, and so is a storehouse of the social detail of medieval Mithila.
Option A, Vidyapati, is the author of the Maithili padavali and Sanskrit works, but his fame rests on verse, not prose, and he is slightly later. Option B, Chanda Jha, is a nineteenth century writer who rendered the Ramayana into Maithili as Mithila Bhasha Ramayana. Option D, Harimohan Jha, is the twentieth century satirist of Khattar Kaka and the novel Kanyadan. In the exam, fix the pair Jyotirishwar Thakur and Varna Ratnakara as the first prose, and Vidyapati and padavali as the first great poetry.
Read the full article: Bihar Languages and Literature: Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi
Practice Questions
View allMaithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution by which amendment?
- A.71st Amendment Act, 1992
- B.92nd Amendment Act, 2003
- C.21st Amendment Act, 1967
- D.96th Amendment Act, 2011
Show answer
This amendment added four languages to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, namely Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, and raised the total number of scheduled languages from eighteen to twenty-two.
Read the full explanation →By which title is the poet Vidyapati of Mithila remembered?
- A.Maithil Kokil
- B.Shakespeare of Bhojpuri
- C.Rashtrakavi
- D.Purvi Samrat
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Vidyapati was the poet of the Mithila court in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and his Maithili padavali of songs about Radha and Krishna is still sung in north Bihar.
Read the full explanation →Which of these languages spoken in Bihar is NOT included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution?
- A.Hindi
- B.Urdu
- C.Bhojpuri
- D.Maithili
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Bhojpuri is spoken by crores of people in western Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and the Indian diaspora of Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname and Trinidad, and it has a rich folk theatre, yet it has not been added to the Eighth Schedule.
Read the full explanation →Which script was traditionally used for writing the Maithili language?
- A.Kaithi
- B.Tirhuta or Mithilakshar
- C.Sharada
- D.Brahmi
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This is the traditional script of the Mithila region, used for Maithili manuscripts, panjis of genealogy and ritual texts, and it is related to the eastern group of scripts that also produced Bengali and Assamese letters.
Read the full explanation →Bhikhari Thakur, known as the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, is the author of which folk play?
- A.Bidesiya
- B.Maila Anchal
- C.Khattar Kaka
- D.Rashmirathi
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Bhikhari Thakur of Kutubpur in Saran district wrote, composed and staged plays with his own travelling troupe, and Bidesiya, on the suffering of a wife whose husband has migrated for work, became the name of a whole style of Bhojpuri theatre.
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