Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c13.s3.11

v1.c13.s3.11

To be a successful disputant, one had to be equipped with all the outfit of specious arguments (*kūṭatarka*) to meet those opponents who made a free use of them whenever needed. It is clear from Buddha’s injunctions to the bhikkhus, that he wanted them to use their power of argumentation in the service of truth and truth alone, and not to take to sophistry of their own accord. But a preacher ignorant of the wiles of a specious arguer and unable to use counter-wiles for self-defence would certainly be a weak disputant. It was for this reason perhaps that we see Buddha applying such a method with men who came to argue with crooked intention, or took to crooked ways of disputation. This is seen in the *Ambaṭṭha Sutta*¹ where Buddha in order to silence Ambaṭṭha, who claimed the superiority of Brāhmaṇas over all by birth and stated that the Sākyas were of servile origin, related the fictitious account of the origin of the Sākyas and Kaṇhāyanas showing that the latter were the descendants of a *dāsiputta* (son of a slave-girl) of the former. The object of the use of the story was to put it as a stunner to Ambaṭṭha exposing his low origin.