Books and Authors question: Consider the pair A History of South India and The Cholas. Which author is associated with both works?

The verified answer to “Books and Authors question: Consider the pair A History of South India and The Cholas. Nilakanta Sastri, option C. The source-backed, question-specific record explains: A History of South India is correctly associated with K. The work’s first publication is conventionally dated to 1955, and its original language is English. These three details—title, author, and language—form the decisive bibliographical combination required here. Nilakanta Sastri, a major Indian literary figure, is also associated with The Cholas; that companion title helps confirm the authorship independently rather than through guesswork. The distractor set (Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak; Jaishankar Prasad; Maulana Abul Kalam Azad) must therefore be tested as complete statements: one true fragment cannot make an entire option correct. A candidate should first lock the title to its writer, then check the language, and finally use 1955 as a chronological cross-check. A common examination trap is to confuse an author’s nationality with the language of composition, or a translation date with first publication. Nilakanta Sastri, English, and 1955 is uniquely valid; every other choice contains at least one broken association. Revision takeaway: remember the compact chain “A History of South India — K. Nilakanta Sastri — English — 1955,” and connect it with The Cholas for stronger recall. This evidence establishes the bibliographic relationship required in this Books and Authors item. A correct solution must preserve the exact title, author, publication context, language, award or comparison requested by the stem. Similar periods, genres or national traditions do not make two book–author pairs interchangeable. Nilakanta Sastri and satisfies the wording of the question. The remaining choices—Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, Jaishankar Prasad and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad—do not satisfy the complete requirement.