These were his last words when, trembling, he took his seat:
"My master, I may be beaten in play of words, but not in my love for
thee,"
Tears filled the eyes of the hearers, and the stone walls shook with
cries of victory.
Mocking this popular outburst of feeling, with an august shake of his
head and a contemptuous sneer, Pundarik stood up, and flung this
question to the assembly; "What is there superior to words?" In a
moment the hall lapsed into silence again.
Then with a marvellous display of learning, he proved that the Word was
in the beginning, that the Word was God. He piled up quotations from
scriptures, and built a high altar for the Word to be seated above all
that there is in heaven and in earth. He repeated that question in his
mighty voice: "What is there superior to words?"
Proudly he looked around him. None dared to accept his challenge, and
he slowly took his seat like a lion who had just made a full meal of its
victim. The pandits shouted, Bravo ! The king remained silent with
wonder, and the poet Shekhar felt himself of no account by the side of
this stupendous learning.
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