Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c6.s3.12

c6.s3.12

The brāhmaṇas (the knowledgeable ones) in this debate were armed with hundred kinds of reasoning and they had initiated several types of Śāstras (knowledge systems). In that grand debate, (the assembly came to be divided in two different groups of *vādins* (the proponents) and *prativādins* (the opponents). But they could not reach any solution to these fundamental problems. The sages were agitated to such an extent that out of fury they tore away cloths and destroyed the pots and sticks.⁶⁴ Then they calmed down and approached Sage Vasiṣṭha to resolve their questions with regard to the eternal truth. When Vasiṣṭha expressed his inability to do so, they all went to Nārada. Ultimately a divine voice told them to go to Sanatkumāra. They were finally preached by Sanatkumāra, much on the lines of the Upaniṣadic discourses, incorporating even sentences in prose instead of the usual verse form in which most of the epic is structured.