The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

144 - Other Views on the Philosophical Systems
Sautrāntika also, not in the technical sense that the expression
acquired, but in a more general sense.
Śāttaṉār’s anxiety is to teach what the Buddha taught. It [105] is just
possible on this very ground to claim for him anteriority, though it is
equally possible that a later writer could lay himself out to
disentangle the actual teaching of the Buddha from its outgrowths.
But the claim to Śāttaṉār’s anteriority, according to me, rests not so
much on this feature as on the particular feature that the other
systems as such did not come in for commendation in the book on
Buddhism, and what perhaps is more to be expected, in condemnation
along with the heretical systems. One explanation is possible that,
while he condemns systems which did not recognize the Buddha, he
merely expounds a system taught by the Buddha, and passed over
outgrowths from that system with a tolerance which is not unusual in
Indian thought.
I have taken it upon myself to make this elaborate criticism of the
views of my much esteemed and learned friend, Professor Jacobi,
because the importance of the subject and the eminence of the
scholarship of the professor alike demand it from me. The stimulus to
this line of investigation at this time, came from him to me, and it is
but fair to him that I should acknowledge it here, and consider his
criticism with the respect which is due to the eminent source from
which it comes.
The elaborate criticism and the extensive answer that that
necessitated, alike go to show that the line of investigation that was
undertaken has shown clearly, though somewhat disappointingly, that
this line of investigation cannot by any means lay claim to that