Arrange the following religious teachers in the subcontinent in the order of the time of their preaching.
(A) Data Ganj Bakhsh in Punjab
(B) Miyan Mir in Punjab
(C) Tukaram in Maharashtra
(D) Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → (A), (D), (C), (B)
Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, none of the given options appears to be correct, because Miyan Mir was preaching in Lahore well before Tukaram, as explained below. Tukaram jumps the queue in NTA’s list; Miyan Mir was teaching in Lahore years before him.
The four teachers are placed by the period in which they taught:
(A) Data Ganj Bakhsh in Punjab — Ali al-Hujwiri, a Sufi of the 11th century who settled in Lahore and wrote the Kashf-ul-Mahjub, the earliest Persian book on Sufism; he died about 1072.
(D) Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi — the Chishti Sufi of Delhi (1238–1325), whose khanqah drew people of every class in the 13th–14th centuries.
(B) Miyan Mir in Punjab — a Qadiri Sufi of Lahore (about 1550–1635), who was teaching there from the late 16th century; Jahangir called on him, and Dara Shikoh was a devoted follower.
(C) Tukaram in Maharashtra — the Varkari saint-poet (about 1608–1650), whose Marathi abhangas date from the 1630s and 1640s, when Miyan Mir was already an old and famous teacher.
By these dates the order is (A), (D), (B), (C), which is not among the options.