Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c5.s17.1

c5.s17.1

One of the most comprehensive works on *vāda* in practice is *Nīlakeśī* (*Neelakesi*) — a Tamil text giving account of the debates of Nīlakeśī, a Jaina nun around fourth-fifth centuries. The biographies of philosophers like Śaṅkarācārya in Sanskrit written between fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, and accounts of the life and deeds of Diṅnāga and Dharmakīrti from Chinese and Tibetan sources provide detailed accounts of the public debates these philosophers entered with their rivals. These biographical accounts sometimes tend to become mythical and over-exaggerated.