The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

141 - Other Views on the Philosophical Systems
in fact it cannot be, if according to other scholars who have
specialized their studies in the Nyāya, Akṣapāda was far anterior to
Nāgārjuna himself.
All I wish to point out is that an argument such as this cannot be held
to be decisive in our present state of knowledge of the chronology of
these works. The Mahāyāna is not a product of Nāgārjuna’s teaching.
The teaching of Mahāyāna can be traced back to the days of Aśoka, if
not earlier. But the actual Śūnyavāda in the form in which it has come
down to us is still generally regarded as the teaching of Nāgārjuna.
The possibilities are that Śāttaṉār’s teaching embodies whatever was
in the opinion of the Tamil country, the orthodox teaching of
Buddhism, about the same time as Nāgārjuna was expounding the
Śūnyavāda of the Mahāyānistic school in the Āndhra country across,
both being the result of the same stir, particularly in the continent of
India, that is indicated in the Mahāvaṁsa of Ceylon as the famous
Vaitulya controversy. The heretics are located, according to the
Mahāvaṁsa, in the coast country set over against Anuradhapura
extending northwards into the Āndhra country.
Therefore the time at which Śāttaṉār lived seems to me the time
which actually produced Nāgārjuna and Deva and possibly a little
anterior. Much as the great Master of the Law, Hiuen-Tsang [Xuan
Zang], does not make any reference to Dharmakirti who lived in his
time and perhaps was actually teaching when [103] the great traveller
was in India, Śāttaṉār fails to mention Nāgārjuna or his Śūnyavāda.