Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c5.s12.1

c5.s12.1

With the growth of religion in the organized forms, the abbots and heads of diverse sects assumed political power and started behaving like kings and masters. Debates came to be conducted on war-footing basis. Veṅkaṭādhvarin in his *Viśvaguṇādarśacampū* (564) uses the metaphor *vādāhava* (debate as a battle). A man engaging himself in a series of scholastic debates at different places was projected as a warrior set out for *digvijaya* — a journey for victory throughout the country. The word has been used in the context of *vāda* perhaps for the first time by Śrīharṣa in his *Khaṇḍanakhaṇḍakhādya* — a text on refutation of all philosophical systems.⁶⁶ In many of the biographies of Śaṅkarācārya, which were written after twelfth century CE, the series of his conquests in debates are described as his *digvijaya*.