of the gods, and in Indian palaces. Discussions on philosophical and religious questions have been from the earliest times so much a part of Indian social and religious life that every village had its debating-hall, if only a temporary pandal of bambu and matting or a venerable "tree of wisdom"—a banyan or a pipal—under whose branches the elders gathered in the evening to listen to wandering sādhus defending their theories of the universe, or to disciples of a great teacher travelling from toll to toll, and from court to court, to win converts for their master's cause—for even the common people took an intelligent interest in the great problems of life which occupied all the thoughts of the monk and scholar. In the towns and at the royal courts a contest between philosophical champions was as much an entertainment for a great wedding feast or for a state ceremonial as it was a recreation for the scholars of a Sanskrit toll or university. And the quinquennial parliament of religions, when under royal auspices thousands of representatives of different schools from all the universities of the land met with high solemnity to adjust disputes or to listen to the thesis of some famous master of philosophy—a Sankarāchārya or Rāmanūja, who had already won his spurs in a hundred fights—was an event in Indian public life like the grandest tournaments of European chivalry, which roused the greatest excitement and became a landmark in history. Such great combats might last for days or weeks, and when finally the end came, and "letters of victory" were given to the successful disputant as a record of his triumph, his opponents would often be beside themselves with grief and rage, and the exultant victor sometimes so far forgot his philosophic dignity as to throw dust upon them in token of his contempt.
