Yagnavalkya said: 'Sakalya, did those Brahmanas (who themselves shrank from the contest) make thee the victim?' Sakalya said: 'Yagnavalkya, because thou hast decried the Brahmanas of the Kuru-Pankalas, what Brahman dost thou know?'

In plain words: Yagnavalkya asks Sakalya if the other priests, who were too afraid to argue, pushed him forward to be beaten. Sakalya angrily asks what Brahman Yagnavalkya knows, since he looked down on the priests of the Kuru-Panchala lands.