The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

143 - Other Views on the Philosophical Systems
part. It contains only such teachings [104] as may be acknowledged by
all Buddhists, both Hīnayānists and Mahāyānists. It has not any
reference to the Sarvāstivāda nor the system of the Sautrāntikas, for
the central conception of these two schools is the theory of the
dharmas which is not even hinted at in Śāttaṉār’s abstract. I think he
merely related what every Śrāvaka was supposed to know.’
It may be stated at once that Śāttaṉār although he does not indicate
the authority upon which he relies for the summary of Buddhism in
Book XXX refers elsewhere to what his authority is. The Buddhism
that he teaches is, ‘the path of the Piṭakas, of the Great one.’ 77 He is
expounding the fundamental teachings of the Buddha and not the
teachings of schools of Buddhism which are elaborations and
modifications of systems-builders of later times. It is possible to make
the inference from this alone that Śāttaṉār was anterior to the growth
of definite systems that we know of in Buddhism, particularly the
four which are so prominently associated with the Buddhism of a
later age. But that argument need not be pushed to any extreme.
A German scholar of the twentieth century, laying himself out
definitely to disentangle the teachings of the Buddha from the
excrescences of subsequent ages and teachers, inculcates in substance
what is the teaching of Śāttaṉār, neither more nor less. 78 So Śāttaṉār’s
teaching may be regarded as the teaching of ‘the Piṭaka of the
Buddha’, and therefore indicates a deference to the authority of the
‘word of the Buddha’ such as it was known to be in his time. In that
sense it would be what is called Sthavirāvada and may be regarded as
77 Book XXVI, 1, 66.
78 The Doctrine of the Buddha by George Grimm, Leipzig, 1926.