The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

118 - The Philosophical Systems
declaration of such resignation into dependence upon the three jewels
Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha.
Thus Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ began his teaching with how the Buddha came
into the world and how he attained to enlightenment, and begins to
expound the discovery that he made of the ‘Four Truths,’ suffering,
origin of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the way to bring about
cessation of suffering, a truth which according to this teacher had
been taught by a succession of venerable Buddhas before. The
realization of these ‘Four Truths’ could only be [81] achieved by
overcoming the chain of causes and conditions incorporated in the
twelve nidānas. These twelve are so related to each other as cause and
effect that the cessation of the one necessarily brings about the
cessation of the following. We are told that these may be regarded in
the relation of subjects and of attributes as the attributes could not
exist if the subjects themselves cease to exist.
These nidānas are then expounded fully, and each one of these is
actually explained in the way both the Northern and the Southern
schools of Buddhism actually do. The exposition seems actually to
follow closely that of the Sarvāstivādīns and the Sautrāntikas.
Ignorance is explained as the chief cause of it all. It consists in a want
of capacity in oneself to perceive truth, and in the capacity for
deluding oneself in believing that which could not be perceived, on
the authority of others. The ultimate result of this leads to a cycle of
births in the six different worlds of beings, of which the first three are
respectively, Dēva, Brahma, and the human; the next three, animal
life, the spirit world and the netherworld itself.