The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

26 - Introduction
In book XXX the author of the Maṇimēkhalai lays himself out to give
the actual teaching of the Buddha ‘according to the Piṭakas’, and gives
a clear but succinct statement of the main Buddhistic theory of the
‘Four Truths’, ‘the twelve Nidānas’, and the means of getting to the
correct knowledge, which ultimately would put an end to ‘Being’.
There is here none of the features that the later schools of Buddhism
indicate, so that we cannot exactly label the Buddhism contained in
book XXX as of this school or that precisely.
It may be said, however, to be of the Sthaviravāda and of the
Sautrāntika school of Buddhism, which seems to be the form in vogue
in this part of the country, and coming in for much criticism later.
This position is, to some extent, supported by the expression used in
the text itself elsewhere that it is the ‘Path of the Piṭakas of the Great
One’. Even in this abridged form, it is not without points that indicate
a transition similar to those indicated in book XXIX. There is nothing
that may be regarded as referring to any form of Mahāyāna
Buddhism, particularly the Śūnyavāda as formulated by Nāgārjuna.
One way of interpreting this silence would be that Nāgārjuna’s
teaching as such of the Śūnyavāda had not yet travelled to the Tamil
country to be mentioned in connection with the orthodox teaching of
Buddhism or to be condemned as unorthodox. This is to some extent
confirmed by the fact that in referring to the soul, the reference in
book XXX seems clearly to be to the individual soul, not to the
universal Soul, which seems to be a development of the so called
Sātyasiddhi school which came a little later. These points support the
view to which we were led in our study of the previous books, [xxviii]
and thus make the work clearly one of a date anterior to Dignāga, and
not posterior.