In the age in which Shankaracharya lived, there was a great scholar and savant named Mandana Mishra who was a supporter of the Mimamsa section of the Vedas. Shankara in the course of his travels in which he used to preach and popularise the Advaita Vedanta found it necessary to defeat the doctrine propounded by Mandana Mishra and suggested that they should hold a debate in order to ascertain whether Karma (the way of selfless work) according to Mandana Mishra or Jnana (the way of knowledge) according to Shankara was superior. The two agreed that whoever lost the debate should become the disciple of the other. They found it, however, very difficult to find somebody who would sit as the judge to decide which was the winning party. Mandana Mishra’s wife Ubhaya Bharati was very learned and well-known for her erudition in many parts of the country, and Shankara, therefore, proposed that she should be the judge. Mandana Mishra agreed and as Ubhaya Bharati too had no objection, she sat as the presiding judge over the debate. The debate went on for days together, at the end of which it was clear that it was Mandana Mishra who was defeated. The judge, however, before giving her verdict, said that it could not be said that Shankara had completely defeated Mandana Mishra because the latter’s wife was half of his self, and therefore unless she too was defeated, Mandana Mishra could not be said to have been totally defeated.
Shankara thereupon agreed to have a debate with her also and Mandana Mishra was appointed as the judge in the debate. As soon as the debate started, Ubhaya Bharati put certain questions to Shankara to which a married man alone could reply. Shankara was a celibate and was not in a position to answer the question. He, accordingly, had to ask for six months’ time within which he would be able to acquaint himself with the subject and facts to reply to the questions put to him. At the end of this period Shankara came back and answered all the questions put by Ubhaya Bharati to the judge’s satisfaction. Mandana Mishra was accordingly held to have been completely vanquished. He, therefore, left his wife and home and followed Shankara as his disciple.