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INTRODUCTION
4. Study and Scholarship : Siddhasena had studied all the contemporary Vedic schools of philosophy, all the branches of Mabā-Yāna sect and the principal works of Ājivika philosophy. It is needless to mention that he was the most critical student of the Jaina philosophy. All the principal doctrines of various religious sects have been briefly but most clearly and logically mentioned in the different chapters of these Dwā. Siddhasena has thus oppened a way to all other scholars to have an easy grasp of the principal tenets of all the important systems of philosophy of his times.
5. Nature : He was by nature a merry person and seems to be given to wit and satire. He has described even ordinary things in such a manner that even a serious reader would not held bursting into a loud peel of laughter by their reading?
6. View-point : He was a critical observer of things and was quite logical in his arguments and dauntless in his analysis of things. But with all this he was not free from religious narrow-mindedness, for while attacking rival doctrines and views, though scrupulously logical in his arguments, he is sometimes very bitter in his attack. Whenever he was not able to prove anything on the strength of logic, he took recourse to faith, and on its strength, tried to refute rival arguments and establish his own point of view. The sort of critical acumen and sound logic found in him while attacking
1 Dwà. 6. 1 as well as 8.1; 12.1. 2 Vide Dwă. 1.14
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