With reference to cultural history of India, consider the following statements: 1) Most of the Tyagaraja Kritis are devotional songs in praise of Lord Krishna. 2) Tyagaraja created several new ragas. 3) Annamacharya and Tyagaraja are contemporaries. 4) Annamacharya kirtanas are devotional songs in praise of Lord Venkateshwara. Which of the statements given above are correct?

The correct answer is B (2 and 4 only). Statement 2 and statement 4 are right; statements 1 and 3 are wrong.

• Statement 1 is wrong. Tyagaraja (1767-1847) wrote most of his kritis in praise of Lord Rama, his chosen deity. Krishna is not the dominant theme of his corpus.
• Statement 2 is right. Tyagaraja is credited with composing in many ragas and with bringing several ragas into prominence, some of which are attributed to him.
• Statement 3 is wrong. Annamacharya (c. 1408-1503) lived about three centuries before Tyagaraja. They are not contemporaries.
• Statement 4 is right. Annamacharya composed thousands of sankirtanas, many dedicated to Lord Venkateswara of Tirumala, and is regarded as one of the earliest major composers in the Telugu devotional tradition.

The core concept is the Bhakti movement's vaggeyakara tradition, where composer-saints wrote music and devotion together. This links to Art and Culture in Mains, where the question of how bhakti shaped regional languages and music is a recurring theme.

Trap: Aspirants assume both composers belong to the same era because they are both famous Telugu-language Carnatic composers, and so mark option C or D.