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Lesson 4 of 8 · Static General Knowledge: Symbols, Firsts, Awards, Sports and Organisations

Books and Authors: Ancient Classics to Modern Indian and World Writers

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How books are asked

Book and author questions come in two forms: name the author of a title, or name the book written by a person. The classics asked again and again fall into five groups: ancient texts, medieval chronicles, the writing of the freedom struggle, modern Indian literature and world classics. Learn each book with one tag (its language, the court it came from or the prize it won) so that similar titles do not get mixed up.

Ancient India

Kautilya (Chanakya), minister of Chandragupta Maurya, wrote the Arthashastra on statecraft, and Megasthenes, the Greek envoy of Seleucus Nicator at Chandragupta's court, wrote Indica. Panini's Ashtadhyayi is the classic Sanskrit grammar, Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras and Bharata Muni the Natyashastra on drama and dance. Kalidasa wrote Abhijnanashakuntalam, Meghaduta, Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava. Shudraka wrote Mricchakatika, Vishakhadatta Mudrarakshasa and Ashvaghosha the Buddhacharita. Banabhatta, court poet of Harshavardhana, wrote Harshacharita and Kadambari, and Harsha himself wrote the plays Ratnavali, Nagananda and Priyadarshika. Aryabhata wrote the Aryabhatiya, Varahamihira the Brihat Samhita, Charaka and Sushruta the medical works named after them, and Vishnu Sharma the Panchatantra. In Tamil, Thiruvalluvar wrote the Tirukkural and Ilango Adigal the Silappatikaram.

Medieval India

Kalhana's Rajatarangini (12th century) is a history of Kashmir, Jayadeva wrote the Gita Govinda and Chand Bardai the Prithviraj Raso. Al-Biruni, who came with Mahmud of Ghazni, wrote Kitab-ul-Hind, and the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta described the India of Muhammad bin Tughlaq in his Rihla. Amir Khusrau wrote Tughlaqnama and Ziauddin Barani Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi. Babur wrote his memoirs, the Baburnama (Tuzuk-i-Baburi), in Turki; Gulbadan Begum wrote the Humayun-nama; Abul Fazl wrote the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari; and Jahangir wrote the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri. In the Bhakti tradition Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi, Surdas the Sursagar and Malik Muhammad Jayasi the Padmavat.

The freedom struggle

Dadabhai Naoroji's Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) set out the drain theory. Mahatma Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj (1909) and his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth, both first in Gujarati. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote Glimpses of World History, An Autobiography and The Discovery of India, the last in Ahmednagar Fort prison in 1944. Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote Gita Rahasya in Mandalay jail, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad India Wins Freedom, Subhas Chandra Bose The Indian Struggle, Rajendra Prasad India Divided, B.R. Ambedkar Annihilation of Caste (1936), Jyotiba Phule Gulamgiri (1873), Swami Dayanand Saraswati Satyarth Prakash (1875), V.D. Savarkar The Indian War of Independence and Bhagat Singh the essay Why I Am an Atheist. Dinabandhu Mitra's play Nil Darpan (1860) exposed the indigo planters.

Modern Indian writing in English

R.K. Narayan created the town of Malgudi in Swami and Friends and Malgudi Days and won the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide. Mulk Raj Anand wrote Untouchable and Coolie, Raja Rao Kanthapura, Khushwant Singh Train to Pakistan, Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy, Amitav Ghosh The Shadow Lines and The Hungry Tide, and Ruskin Bond The Room on the Roof. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's autobiography is Wings of Fire (1999). Booker winners of Indian birth include Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 1981), Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things, 1997), Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, 2006) and Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger, 2008).

Indian languages

In Hindi, Premchand wrote Godan, Gaban, Nirmala and the story Kafan; Jaishankar Prasad wrote the epic Kamayani; Maithili Sharan Gupt wrote Bharat-Bharati and Saket; Ramdhari Singh Dinkar wrote Rashmirathi and Urvashi; Harivansh Rai Bachchan wrote Madhushala; Phanishwar Nath Renu wrote Maila Anchal; and Shrilal Shukla wrote Raag Darbari. In Bengali, Rabindranath Tagore wrote Gitanjali, Gora and Ghare Baire, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandamath (1882) and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Devdas and Srikanta. In Urdu, Mirza Ghalib's ghazals are collected in his Diwan, and Muhammad Iqbal wrote Saare Jahan Se Achha (Tarana-e-Hind). In Punjabi, Amrita Pritam wrote Pinjar, and in Malayalam G. Sankara Kurup's Odakkuzhal won the first Jnanpith Award.

World classics

Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, Plato The Republic, Dante The Divine Comedy, Machiavelli The Prince, Cervantes Don Quixote and Shakespeare Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations (1776), Rousseau The Social Contract, Karl Marx Das Kapital and, with Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848), and Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species (1859). Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Victor Hugo Les Miserables, Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist, George Orwell Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude. Nelson Mandela's autobiography is Long Walk to Freedom.

Traps to avoid

Indica (Megasthenes) is a Greek account of Mauryan India, while Kitab-ul-Hind (Al-Biruni) is an Arabic work of the 11th century. The Baburnama was written in Turki, not Persian. Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for the English Gitanjali. The Discovery of India is Nehru's, India Wins Freedom is Azad's and India Divided is Rajendra Prasad's.

Key facts

Arthashastra: Kautilya; Indica: Megasthenes; Ashtadhyayi: Panini; Natyashastra: Bharata Muni; Panchatantra: Vishnu Sharma; Aryabhatiya: Aryabhata.
Kalidasa: Abhijnanashakuntalam, Meghaduta, Raghuvamsha, Kumarasambhava; Banabhatta: Harshacharita, Kadambari; Harsha: Ratnavali, Nagananda, Priyadarshika.
Rajatarangini: Kalhana (Kashmir); Gita Govinda: Jayadeva; Prithviraj Raso: Chand Bardai; Kitab-ul-Hind: Al-Biruni; Rihla: Ibn Battuta.
Mughal memoirs: Baburnama (Babur, in Turki); Humayun-nama (Gulbadan Begum); Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari (Abul Fazl); Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri (Jahangir).
Gandhi: Hind Swaraj (1909), My Experiments with Truth; Nehru: The Discovery of India, Glimpses of World History; Azad: India Wins Freedom; Bose: The Indian Struggle; Tilak: Gita Rahasya.
Social reform: Gulamgiri (Jyotiba Phule, 1873); Satyarth Prakash (Dayanand Saraswati, 1875); Annihilation of Caste (Ambedkar, 1936); Nil Darpan (Dinabandhu Mitra, 1860).
Booker: Midnight's Children (Rushdie, 1981); The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy, 1997); The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai, 2006); The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga, 2008).
Hindi classics: Godan (Premchand); Kamayani (Jaishankar Prasad); Bharat-Bharati (Maithili Sharan Gupt); Rashmirathi (Dinkar); Madhushala (Harivansh Rai Bachchan); Maila Anchal (Renu); Raag Darbari (Shrilal Shukla).
World: The Republic (Plato); The Prince (Machiavelli); The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith, 1776); Das Kapital (Marx); War and Peace (Tolstoy); Animal Farm (Orwell); Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela).

Quick revision

Arthashastra Kautilya; Indica Megasthenes; Ashtadhyayi Panini; Kalidasa: Shakuntalam, Meghaduta; Harshacharita Banabhatta; Rajatarangini Kalhana; Kitab-ul-Hind Al-Biruni; Baburnama in Turki; Akbarnama Abul Fazl; Ramcharitmanas Tulsidas; Hind Swaraj Gandhi 1909; Discovery of India Nehru (written 1944); India Wins Freedom Azad; Gita Rahasya Tilak; Gulamgiri Phule; Godan Premchand; Kamayani Prasad; Midnight's Children 1981; The God of Small Things 1997; Wealth of Nations 1776.

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All 8 lessons on Static General Knowledge: Symbols, Firsts, Awards, Sports and Organisations