The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

131 - Other Views on the Philosophical Systems
takōṭi was a follower of Vyāsa in point of
teaching, which may mean that he was a teacher of the system
formulated by Vyāsa, and this involves his exposition of Vyāsa’s
teaching, which took the form of a commentary, such as the
ṭi of an
author Bōdhāyana. Where Rāmānuja speaks, of his following the text
ṣya, the ground for identifying
ṭi does not seem to be quite without support.
The next point of the professor’s criticism is the relative position of
Dignāga and the author of the Maṇimēkhalai, as their teaching of
Buddhistic logic is almost identical in point of form. Since the good
professor has given me full permission to extract from his letters, I
shall [93] take the liberty of expounding his position by quoting his
own words:–
‘I now understand what you meant by saying that in the
Maṇimēkhalai the logical teaching of Dignāga is anticipated.
According to your opinion, there was in South India a school of
Logicians headed by Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ where Dignāga learned the
system of Logic which later in North India he proclaimed as his own.
This is a bold assumption which would require very strong arguments
to pass as admissible. A prima facie objection, of which you seem not
to be unconscious, is the following:– The Maṇimēkhalai is a romance
the scheme of which is laid in the remote past. The events narrated in
it are a fiction of the poet (or his predecessors), and so are the persons
figuring in it. Why should Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ be an exception? Is he, or
his school, well attested by Tamil tradition in the Śangam Literature?
In many Jaina romances there is introduced some Yati who gives an
exposition of the law, converts the hero, etc., etc., but nobody has
taken these teachers for historical persons. They serve the purpose of
the poet to give a sketch of the Jain doctrines, or as the case may be to