The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

121 - The Philosophical Systems
Maṇimēkhalai is then said to have agreed to doing so and set up as an
ascetic tāpasi, which put her on the high road to Nirvāṇa.
In this chapter, Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ follows the mainlines of karma
phenomenology as taught in the school of the Sarvāstivādīns and
what South Indian Tamilians describe as the teaching of the school of
the Sautrāntikas. There is no hint of any element of the teaching of
the school of the Vijñānavādīn in it of which Dignāga was a shining
exponent and even other teachers from Kāñcī down to the days of
Dharmapāla were distinctly exponents of that school. As was pointed
out already, there is nothing that could be regarded as a reference to
the Śūnyavāda and the Madhyamika school; nor even of the
characteristic teachings of the Sātyasiddhi school, a transition as it
were between the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna in the doctrine of
anātma is actually referred to here. This again seems to give us a clear
indication that the time of Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ, or the author Śāttaṉār,
could not be referred to a [84] time when the most distinguished
teacher in Kāñcī was a shining light of the Vijñānavāda school. It
must, however, be noted here that, according to Hiuen-Tsang [Xuan
Zang], the prevalent form of Buddhism in Kāñcī was the
Sthaviravāda.
There is yet another school associated intimately with Kāñcī to which
reference may be made here. The Chinese know of a school of
Buddhism called the Dhyāna School which seems to have had a
continuous existence in China since the days of its introduction in the
sixth century to the present time. This is called in Japanese Yen-shu.
This was introduced into China by an Indian priest called
Bodhidharma. ‘He was the third son of a king of Kāñcī in South India.
He came to China in A.D. 527.’ ‘This school does not cling for support