What was the similarity among Subandhu, Ghatakarpara, Kshapanaka and Virasena?
2016
What was the similarity among Subandhu, Ghatakarpara, Kshapanaka and Virasena?
Answer: C. They were all in the court of Chandragupta Vikramaditya. — ConceptWhen a set of individuals is named together in Indian historical sources, the group is identified by the single institution that every one of them is…
- A.
They were all rulers of Gujarat.
- B.
They were all preachers of Buddhism.
- C.
They were all in the court of Chandragupta Vikramaditya.
- D.
They were all preachers of Jainism.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
When a set of individuals is named together in Indian historical sources, the group is identified by the single institution that every one of them is attached to — one royal court, one dynastic line, or one religious order.
Identifying such a group therefore means finding the affiliation that covers every name on the list, not one that fits only part of it. Where some names rest on inscriptions and others only on later tradition, the shared affiliation still holds, but it must be stated as tradition wherever tradition is all the evidence there is.
Application
The four names are placed as follows, and the placements converge on one and the same royal assembly:
Name | How the person is placed |
|---|---|
Subandhu | Sanskrit prose author of the romance Vasavadatta; literary tradition places him in the Gupta court circle, although his exact date is debated. |
Ghatakarpara | Sanskrit poet, author of the short lyric poem Ghatakarpara Kavya; counted in the traditional list of nine gems. |
Kshapanaka | Scholar remembered in tradition for astrological and grammatical learning; also counted in the traditional list of nine gems. |
Virasena | Minister for peace and war (sandhivigrahika), named in the Udayagiri cave inscription as accompanying the emperor. |
Chandragupta II, who bore the title Vikramaditya, ruled the Gupta empire from about 375 to 415 CE. Virasena’s presence at his court rests on inscriptional evidence; Ghatakarpara and Kshapanaka are placed there by the later Navaratna tradition, whose conventional list of nine runs Kalidasa, Dhanvantari, Kshapanaka, Amarasimha, Shanku, Vetala Bhatta, Ghatakarpara, Varahamihira and Vararuchi; and Subandhu is assigned to the same court circle by literary tradition.
Note that the list of nine gems does not itself contain Subandhu or Virasena. The affiliation shared by all four is the court itself, which is wider than that list of nine, so the common feature is attachment to the court of Chandragupta Vikramaditya.
Cross-check
Gujarat: the early historical rulers of that region are the Maitrakas of Valabhi and, later, the Chaulukyas of Anahilapataka — dynastic houses known from copper-plate land grants, and none of the four names belongs to those lines.
Buddhism: the remembered propagators of that faith are monastic teachers such as Ashvaghosha, Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, recorded through ordination lineages that do not contain this set of names.
Jainism: its teachers are recorded through the pattavali succession lists of the Shvetambara and Digambara orders; Kshapanaka alone is sometimes linked to Jain learning, and that link does not extend to Subandhu, Ghatakarpara or Virasena.
Only the Gupta court accounts for all four names at once, which is what the question asks for.