Page:Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets.djvu/38

Rh tree that has already been noticed and by the means of its branches jumped into a saloon in the house, where he found Mandana Misra, harangueing a large multitude, Who were seated to bear his doctrines, and listening to his discourses with admiration. Sankarachari was soon engaged in controversy with the master of the house on some abstruse point in philosophy, and completely vanquished him in every argument that was contested. The wife of Mandana Misra perceiving that her husband was baffled and overcome, immediately stepped forward and challenged Sankarachari to dispute on the mysterioua science of Sexual intercourse. It should be observed that the art of love among Hindus is cultivated by the learned as a science the most intricate and Sublime that can engage the mind of man, and many Shasters have been written on this subject by sages of antiquity, whose texts have been explained by numerous commentators— Sankarachari had no knowledge of this science, as he was a bachelor, and had never been engaged in a love affair with any female, since his birth — he therefore, declined the contest for the present with the wife