Consider the following statements: I. Saint Nimbarka was a contemporary of Akbar. II. Saint Kabir was greatly influenced by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Both statements are false, so the answer is D. Check each one against dates. Nimbarka, the founder of the Dvaitadvaita (bhedabheda) school and the worship of Radha-Krishna, is traditionally placed around the 12th century, with some scholars arguing for an even earlier date. He was not a contemporary of Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605.

Statement II fails on chronology. Kabir (c. 1440-1518), the Bhakti poet, lived in the Lodi period. Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), the Naqshbandi thinker known as Mujaddid Alf Sani, came more than a century later. Sirhindi was in fact a critic of Akbar's sulh-i-kul and Din-i-Ilahi, so no direct influence on Kabir is possible.

The core concept is chronology of medieval religious movements. For Mains, this links to the Bhakti and Sufi traditions and their mutual interaction, as well as the Mughal policy of religious accommodation versus orthodox reaction.

Trap: Candidates who recall that Sirhindi was a major Sufi reformer and assume he must have influenced a popular saint like Kabir, without checking dates.