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LIFE OF MAHÁVÍRA.
67
After he had done this, he went to the place within the curtain, where Queen Trišalá sat, and
should burst from the knowledge he contained, had a servant carrying a ladder, to bring down from heaven the vanquished disputant, who might there try to conceal his defeat, had with him also a pickaxe, to dig out the disputant who should skulk away to Hades, and a bundle of grass for the man to eat after his discomfiture, who should venture to throwat him the garland of defiance. Thus accoutred he travelled through the Deccan, Gujarath, and Marwar, vanquishing all who entered the lists with him. He went even as far as the banks of the Sarasvati, where hearing of the fame of Bhoja's Court he determined to proceed to Ougein. King Bhoja treated him with all respect, and called an assembly of all his five hundred learned men, Kálidas, Kridachandra, Bhavabhúti, and the rest, to dispute with him. They were entirely defeated by the Southern Pandit. Next day King Bhoja, greatly chagrined, went out to take exercise, and on his way he saw a certain oilman, called Ganga, blind of an eye, throwing the oil-seed into the oil-press. "What a wise man must this be," said he to himself, "if the saying be true, that a dwarf and a man with yellow eyes have sixty tricks, a man born withont a leg or an arm has a hundred, but the number that he has who is blind of an eye no one can tell.'" Going up therefore to the oilman, the King asked him, if he would try his skill in disputing with the learned foreigner. The oilman replied, “What can I do, or what reputation for learning have I? yet, come, victory may through haphazard decide in my favour; I will make the experiment." On Sunday next, the King having called the Southern Pandit said to him, “O Bhatta Acharya, you have vanquished all my learned men, it is true, but you have not yet come in contact with their instructur; I wish you to-day to enter the lists with him.” “Very well,” the
