The judge who was Saraswati: Ubhaya Bharati, Shankara and the two Sharadas
Mandana Mishra's wife judges his debate with Shankara by two garlands, examines the winner herself, is recognised as Saraswati and promised the temple at Sringeri; in Kashmir the goddess's own voice questions Shankara before he takes the Throne of Omniscience.
Shankara comes to Mandana Mishra's house while Mandana is washing the feet of Vyasa and Jaimini for a rite.
Mandana, who dislikes renunciates, quarrels with him; the sages calm him and he accepts a debate: the loser becomes the winner's disciple.
Mandana asks Vyasa and Jaimini to judge; they name his wife Ubhaya Bharati, accepted as Saraswati come down, to judge instead.
She hangs a garland on each man's neck: whose garland withers first has lost.
Shankara argues that Brahman alone is real and the world an appearance; Mandana that the Veda's rites are the authority and action the way.
After many days she declares Shankara's arguments the stronger; Mandana's garland has faded; he takes sannyasa and she gives alms to both.
She says her husband is only half defeated until she, his other half, is defeated, and debates Shankara herself.
Finding him unbeatable in the Vedas and shastras, she questions him on the life of householders, which a lifelong celibate does not know; he asks for a month and goes away to learn it.
On his return she praises him, says defeat before him is no disgrace, and asks leave to go to her heavenly home.
Shankara names her Saraswati, consort of Brahma, and promises her temples, at Sringeri above all; she agrees and disappears.
South India · Mahishmati; Sringeri, KarnatakaSmarta
Shankara enters Mandana's house as Mandana washes the feet of Vyasa and Jaimini. A wordy duel follows, the sages calm Mandana, and he accepts the challenge on the condition that the loser becomes the winner's disciple. He asks the two sages to judge; they say his wife Ubhaya Bharati, accepted as an incarnation of Saraswati, shall judge. She puts a garland on each neck and declares that the man whose garland withers is beaten. Shankara opens: Brahman is the one truth and the world appears through ignorance, like silver in a shell. Mandana: the ritual portion of the Veda is the authority and action leads to liberation. The debate runs for days (seventeen, one excerpt says); she accepts that Shankara's arguments have overcome Mandana's, his wreath fades, he takes sannyasa, and she serves alms to both. Then she says Shankara cannot claim full victory until she, the better half, is defeated, and debates him herself; finding him unbeatable in the Vedas and shastras she turns to the Kama Shastra, which a celibate since boyhood cannot know; he asks for a month. On his return she praises him as Sadashiva, says defeat is no disgrace, like stars before the sun, and asks leave for her heavenly abode. He identifies her as Saraswati, Brahma's consort and Shiva's sister, and promises temples at Rishyasringagiri and elsewhere; she agrees and vanishes.
Kashmir: the Throne of Omniscience at Sharada Peeth
The Himalaya · Sharada Peeth, Neelum valley, KashmirSmarta
The temple had four thrones, one at each door, facing the four quarters, and only a scholar from that quarter could open its door; no one from the south had. Shankara took up the southern door. The people welcomed him, the scholars challenged him: Nyaya philosophers, Buddhists, Shvetambara Jains and followers of Jaimini, and he convinced them all. As he was about to ascend, the voice of the goddess Sharada objected that omniscience is not enough for one who is impure, and that a man who had lived in King Amaruka's palace could not be pure. He answered that his own body had committed no sin and that another's sins could not stain him. The goddess accepted it, and tradition holds that he opened the southern door. Kashmiri Pandits see the goddess there in three forms: Sharada, learning; Saraswati, knowledge; Vagdevi, speech.
What is different here:
The goddess speaks in her own voice, not through a human judge; the test is purity, not learning; no garlands, no Mandana; the place is her Kashmir shrine.
Sringeri says Shankara chose the spot when he saw a cobra spread its hood over a frog about to spawn, to shade it from the noon sun; he installed a sandalwood image of Sharada over a Sri Chakra, replaced in the fourteenth century by Vidyaranya's gold image. A Kashmiri Pandit telling, recorded in 2023, has it that after his victory at the Kashmir Sharada Peeth Shankara asked the goddess to come home with him; she agreed on condition that he never look back; he heard her anklets the whole way, and when the sound stopped on the bank of the Tunga he turned, and she stayed there as an image.
What is different here:
No debate at all; the goddess comes from Kashmir, not from a human birth; the anklets and the backward look are the whole story.
Sources: Madhaviya Shankara Digvijaya, Sringeri's abridged English rendering, parts 3 and 9, as posted on the advaita-l list (2017); Sharada Peeth (Wikipedia); Tungabhadra to Teetwal: Devi Sharada's journey to Kashmir (Swarajya, 2023); Sringeri Sharadamba Temple (Wikipedia)