With reference to Indian history, consider the following pairs: Historical person - Known as 1. Aryadeva - Jaina scholar 2. Dignaga - Buddhist scholar 3. Nathamuni - Vaishnava scholar How many pairs given above are correctly matched?

The correct answer is C, only two pairs. Dignaga and Nathamuni are matched rightly while Aryadeva is not, so exactly two pairs are correct. Aryadeva, who lived about the third century, was a Buddhist monk of the Madhyamaka school and the chief disciple of Nagarjuna; his Chatuhshataka defends the doctrine of emptiness, so calling him a Jaina scholar is wrong. Dignaga, of the fifth or sixth century, founded the Buddhist school of logic and wrote the Pramanasamuchchaya, which shaped debate on perception and inference for centuries. Nathamuni, of about the tenth century, was the first acharya of the Srivaishnava tradition at Srirangam; he gathered the Tamil hymns of the Alvars into the Nalayira Divya Prabandham and was the grandfather in the line that led to Ramanuja. A is wrong because two pairs do match. B understates the count and D overstates it. Exam tip: Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Buddhapalita and Chandrakirti all belong to the Madhyamaka line.