Flash Check — 70 Questions

1. Who is traditionally credited with compiling the Vedanta Sutra (Brahma Sutra)? — Badarayana (also identified as Vyasa).
2. Which epic is traditionally attributed to Valmiki, and what special title is given to it in Sanskrit literary tradition? — The Ramayana; called "Adi Kavya," the first poem.
3. Who wrote the Arthashastra, and by what three names is this author known? — Kautilya, also known as Chanakya and Vishnugupta.
4. Name the author of Abhijnanasakuntalam, Meghaduta, and Raghuvamsha. — Kalidasa.
5. Which Sanskrit drama, unusually, features a commoner as its protagonist rather than a royal or mythological figure? — Mrichchhakatika ("The Little Clay Cart"), by Sudraka.
6. Who wrote the Harshacharita, a biography of a real historical king? — Banabhatta, court poet of Harshavardhana.
7. What is the Amarakosha, and who compiled it? — A Sanskrit thesaurus/lexicon, compiled by Amara Simha.
8. Name the foundational Sanskrit grammar text and its author. — Ashtadhyayi, by Panini.
9. Who wrote the Ramcharitmanas, and in which language/dialect? — Tulsidas, in Awadhi.
10. Name the Tamil retelling of the Ramayana and its author. — Kambaramayanam, by Kamban.
11. Who is considered the earliest known Assamese Ramayana author? — Madhava Kandali.
12. What distinguishes Saguna Bhakti from Nirguna Bhakti? — Saguna Bhakti worships a god with form/attributes (e.g., Rama, Krishna — Tulsidas, Surdas, Mirabai); Nirguna Bhakti worships a formless, attribute-less divine (Kabir, Guru Nanak).
13. Who is the only woman among the twelve Alvar saints of Tamil Vaishnavism, and what did she compose? — Andal; composed the Tiruppavai.
14. Name the author of Padmavat, and identify the literary tradition it belongs to. — Malik Muhammad Jayasi; Sufi literature, written in Awadhi.
15. Which Sufi/court poet is traditionally credited with early Hindavi compositions alongside his Persian ghazals? — Amir Khusrau.
16. Which two national songs/anthems did Rabindranath Tagore compose? — India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla."
17. Which novel by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay contains "Vande Mataram"? — Anandamath.
18. Name the Jnanpith-winning author of Hajar Churashir Maa. — Mahasweta Devi.
19. Who wrote Pather Panchali, the basis for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy? — Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.
20. Name the pen name and real name pairing for Hindi's most celebrated novelist, known for Godaan. — Munshi Premchand; real name Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, initially published as "Nawab Rai."
21. Who wrote Kamayani, a major Chhayavaad-era Hindi epic poem? — Jaishankar Prasad.
22. Name the four major poets of the Hindi Chhayavaad movement. — Jaishankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi "Nirala," Sumitranandan Pant, and Mahadevi Verma.
23. Which Hindi novel pioneered the "regional novel" (aanchalik upanyas) genre? — Maila Anchal, by Phanishwar Nath "Renu."
24. Who wrote Toba Tek Singh, and what is its central theme? — Saadat Hasan Manto; a Partition-era short story on the absurdity and trauma of Partition, set partly in an asylum.
25. Which Urdu writer faced an obscenity trial over the short story "Lihaaf"? — Ismat Chughtai.
26. Name the pen name under which Raghupati Sahay wrote Urdu poetry, and the award he won in 1969. — Firaq Gorakhpuri; Jnanpith Award.
27. Which Kannada author wrote Sri Ramayana Darshanam and composed Karnataka's state anthem? — Kuvempu (K.V. Puttappa).
28. Name the Jnanpith-winning Malayalam novel about a fishing community. — Chemmeen, by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai.
29. Who wrote Ponniyin Selvan, later adapted into a major Tamil film? — Kalki Krishnamurthy.
30. Which Marathi author, a Jnanpith laureate, wrote Yayati? — Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar (V.S. Khandekar).
31. Who was the first woman to win the Jnanpith Award, and in what language? — Amrita Pritam, 1982, Punjabi.
32. Name Amrita Pritam's poem written in response to Partition violence. — Ajj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu.
33. Which three authors form the pre-independence "Big Three" of Indian English fiction? — Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, and Raja Rao.
34. What fictional town did R.K. Narayan create, and which of his novels is set in it? — Malgudi; nearly all his fiction, including Swami and Friends, The Guide, and Malgudi Days.
35. Which novel won the Booker Prize in 1981, and what two additional Booker-related honours did it later win? — Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie; the "Booker of Bookers" (1993) and "Best of the Booker" (2008).
36. Who won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her debut novel, and what was it? — Arundhati Roy, for The God of Small Things.
37. Which author became India's first English-language writer to win the Jnanpith Award, in 2018? — Amitav Ghosh.
38. Name the Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri. — Interpreter of Maladies (2000).
39. Who won the Booker Prize in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss, and who is her Booker-shortlisted (but never-won) mother? — Kiran Desai; her mother is Anita Desai.
40. Which novel won the Booker Prize in 2008, and who wrote it? — The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga.
41. Name the first Hindi novel to win the International Booker Prize, its author, and its translator. — Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi), by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell (2022).
42. Which 2025 International Booker Prize winner was the first Kannada work — and first short-story collection — to win the prize? — Heart Lamp, by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi.
43. In what year did Rabindranath Tagore win the Nobel Prize, and for which work? — 1913, for Gitanjali (Song Offerings).
44. Why is V.S. Naipaul described as "Indian-origin" rather than simply "Indian"? — He was born in Trinidad and Tobago, held British citizenship, and never held Indian citizenship — his connection to India is ancestral and thematic.
45. For what did Amartya Sen win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, in 1998? — Contributions to welfare economics (including work on famines and poverty).
46. Which Indian-origin economist won the 2019 Nobel in Economic Sciences, shared with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer? — Abhijit Banerjee.
47. Name the book for which Siddhartha Mukherjee won the Pulitzer Prize, and its subject. — The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2011).
48. Which book by Nehru was written largely at Ahmednagar Fort during imprisonment? — The Discovery of India.
49. What form did Nehru's Glimpses of World History take, and to whom was it addressed? — A series of letters, written to his daughter Indira.
50. What was originally a conference speech rejected by its organisers before B.R. Ambedkar self-published it? — Annihilation of Caste (1936).
51. Which book did Bhagat Singh write shortly before his execution? — Why I Am an Atheist.
52. Name the controversial memoir by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, part of which was originally sealed for 30 years. — India Wins Freedom.
53. Who co-wrote Wings of Fire with A.P.J. Abdul Kalam? — Arun Tiwari.
54. Whose family memoir, Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan, is sometimes mistaken for a self-written autobiography? — Manmohan Singh's — the book was actually written by his daughter, Daman Singh.
55. Name the semi-autobiographical novel written by P.V. Narasimha Rao reflecting on the liberalisation era. — The Insider.
56. Which Nobel Prize in Literature (1953) was awarded not for fiction but for historical/biographical writing and oratory? — Winston Churchill's, largely for The Second World War.
57. In what year was the Nobel Prize first awarded, and name one major author who died before it existed. — 1901; examples include Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, or Mark Twain (any one correct).
58. Did Leo Tolstoy ever win the Nobel Prize in Literature? — No — he was nominated multiple times but never won, despite living until 1910.
59. Which 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate was a musician rather than a conventional author? — Bob Dylan.
60. Who wrote 1984 and Animal Farm, and what was this author's real name? — George Orwell; real name Eric Arthur Blair.
61. Name the real identity behind the pen name "Mark Twain." — Samuel Langhorne Clemens.
62. Which female Victorian novelist wrote under the male pen name "George Eliot," and what is one of her major novels? — Mary Ann Evans; Middlemarch.
63. Name the author who wrote major work in English as "Kamala Das" and in Malayalam as "Madhavikutty" — later adopting what other name? — Kamala Das, later known as Kamala Surayya after her conversion to Islam.
64. What distinguishes the (main) Booker Prize from the International Booker Prize? — The Booker Prize is for a novel originally written in English; the International Booker Prize is for a book translated into English, with prize money split equally between author and translator.
65. Name the wave of writers returning their Sahitya Akademi Awards in 2015, and one participant. — Popularly called "Award Wapsi"; Nayantara Sahgal was among the most prominently cited participants.
66. What relationship does most Jnanpith laureates' career typically show regarding the Sahitya Akademi Award? — Most Jnanpith laureates had already won a Sahitya Akademi Award earlier in their career — the two are sequential, not mutually exclusive, honours.
67. Distinguish Midnight's Children from Freedom at Midnight by author and genre. — Midnight's Children — Salman Rushdie's Booker-winning magical-realist novel; Freedom at Midnight — Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's non-fiction account of the 1947 transfer of power.
68. Who wrote Anandamath and who wrote Gora — and how do these two nationalist-themed Bengali novels differ in authorship? — Anandamath — Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay; Gora — Rabindranath Tagore; two different authors, both engaging with Indian national identity.
69. Name the two Bengali-language women Jnanpith laureates mentioned in this book, and their award years. — Ashapurna Devi (1976) and Mahasweta Devi (1996).
70. Which Indian English author wrote the Ibis Trilogy, and name its three constituent novels. — Amitav Ghosh; Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire.
71. What is the significance of Bhasa's plays being "rediscovered" rather than continuously known? — His plays were lost for centuries and only rediscovered in manuscript form in the early 20th century.
72. Which book by Gandhi was originally serialised in Gujarati under a different title before its widely known English title? — The Story of My Experiments with Truth — originally serialised as Satya na Prayogo.
73. Name the author of Kanthapura, an early Gandhian-era village novel in English. — Raja Rao.
74. Which Punjabi Sufi poet's verses were later included in the Guru Granth Sahib, bridging Sufi and Sikh devotional traditions? — Baba Farid (Farid-ud-Din Ganjshakar).
75. Name the author and year of the novel that first won the International Booker Prize for a work in Kannada. — Banu Mushtaq, 2025, for Heart Lamp.

End of Book 16. Remember: everything in this book up to and including the Jnanpith/Booker/Sahitya Akademi tables reflects the best-corroborated record at the time of writing — but the "Recent and Current-Affairs Books" section, and any award announced very close to your exam date, should always be cross-checked against a fresh current-affairs source before you walk into the exam hall.