_"'Lord! true it is that knowledge can gain salvation, but Thy glories can be known only by him who has been blessed even with a particle of favour from Thy lotus-like feet. O Perfect Being! A man lacking Thy grace, may be free from earthly lusts, may have studied the scriptures for ages, but still he cannot know Thee fully!'_ "O Sárvabhauma, you may be the World's Teacher, a master of theology, unrivalled in the world in scholarship. But you have not gained God's grace, hence you cannot know God. I do not blame you, but the scripture says clearly that the knowledge of God cannot come from mere scholarship." Sárvabhauma replied, "Weigh thy words well, Acharya! How do you prove that you have gained God's grace?" The Acharya replied, "We know a material thing by observing it. Our knowledge of the nature of a thing is proved by grace. On this sannyasi's person are all the marks of divinity. You yourself witnessed his ecstasy of spiritual love. And yet you know not God! Such are the ways of God's illusion, materialists see Him and yet recognize Him not!" Smilingly spoke Sárvabhauma, "We are arguing in a friendly spirit. Don't get warm. Blame me not, I am only arguing from the strict standpoint of view of _Shastra_. Chaitanya Goswámi is [I admit] a great saint. But there is no incarnation of Vishnu in the Kali era. Hence Vishnu's epithet _Tri-yug_ or the Lord of Three. But scripture tells us that the Kali era is without an incarnation." Sadly did the Acharya answer, "You pride yourself on your knowledge of scripture, but you do not mind the _Bhágabat_ and the _Mahábharat_, which are the chief of scriptures. Both of them assert that God will appear in the human form in the Kali era, and yet you maintain the contrary! As God will not appear in Kali for mere earthly exploits [but only for purifying faith], we call him _Tri-yug_. In every era Krishna appears for the spiritual needs of the age. You are a logician, and yet you do not perceive this!" Texts quoted in support; _Bhágabat_, X viii. 9, XI. v. 28, 29; _Mahabharat_, Anushasan Parva, Dan-dharma, canto 149, v. 75-92. "I need not waste these many words on you. They will bear no more fruit than seed sown on sterile soil. When His grace is on you, you will be convinced. Your disciple, who is plying me with all sorts of sophistic arguments, I blame him not; he is under illusion (_máyá_). As the _Bhágabat_, Book VI. canto iv. verse 26, puts it: _[The words of Daksha to God], I bow to the Omnipotent Supreme God, whose power of illusion raises endless controversies among logicians fond of dispute, and keeps their souls ever wrapt in delusion!_ "Again, the _Bhágabat_, XI. xxii. 3, [Krishna's words to Uddhava]." Then Sárvabhauma said, "Go to the monk [Chaitanya] and invite him and his followers to my house. First feed them with _prasád_, and then give me lessons [in theology]!" The Acharya, being Sárvabhauma's sister's husband, could [boldly] blame, praise, laugh at or school him.