The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

154 - Prologue
Sorrow-stricken at his death, Maṇimēkhalai consoled herself on
hearing what the divine statue had told her.
The king then threw her into prison from which she was ultimately
released. Maṇimēkhalai taught the queen the Buddha-dharma and
passed on to the kingdom of Āputra.
Taking him with her she went to Maṇipallavam. There she assumed
the form of a venerable ascetic and entered Vañji. In that city she
learnt from teachers of different sects their religious dogmas.
Searching there for Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ and ‘the mothers’ she entered
Kāñcī. At Kāñcī throwing off her disguise, she became a disciple of
Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ. Taught by him, she assumed the form of an ascetic
and devoted herself to the performance of penance in order that she
might destroy birth in this world.
These separate incidents constitute the story of her life, which prince
Iḷangō listened to with great kindness, when the prosperous grain
merchant Śāttaṉār, had set these separate incidents, each in a book of
its own, and composed a work of thirty poems in excellent Tamil on
the subject of the renunciation of Maṇimēkhalai. [114]