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1 SIDDÙASENA DIVAKARA
dame from the family of Kátyā yañão Siddhasena had already heard much about the profound scholarship of VỊddhavādi 'and asked him as to whether he had seen Vțddhavădi anywhere. Vțddhayādi, of course, said that he was himself the person in question. Then Sid. dhasena said, "I have a mind to enter into a debate with you from a very long time will you please accept my challenge ?". The Sūri replied, "Oh learned man, if you want to satisfy your own' mind, why not go to a pandita's assembly? Thus though dissuaded by Vțddhavādi from entering into a controversy on the spot, Siddhasena pressed him to carry it' on then and there. Just then there came cowherd boys. Vệddhavădi appointed them as umpires, or judges and asked Siddhasena to begin the controversy. First of all 'Siddhasena took up the problem of omniscience and established his own point of view that no omniscient person can ever exist. Then Výddhavādi referred the matter to the cowherd boys asking "Well Gentlemen, have you understood anything of this learned pandita ?" They replied, "How can we understand anything of a person who speaks as intelligibly as a parsee?". Hearing this, Vžddhavādi again said to the cowherd boys, "Look here, I have understood what this pandita says. He says that there is no Jina or an o'mpiscient person. Do you believe in what he says?" They said, “This Brahmin tells a lie because Jina is already there in the temple of the Jainas." After this piece of hamour, Vțddhavādi took up the controversy in right earnest and refuted the point of Siddhasena and established the omniscience of Jina' by the force of
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