The Bhikṣuṇī Maṇimēkhalai

7
and goes about supplying the needy with an endless supply of food
from the magical bowl.
While doing her charitable works she also feeds the prisoners in the
state prison, which is reported to the King, who is astounded with her
miraculous powers. He asks what he can do for her, and she replies
that he should destroy the prison, and build a monastery in its place,
which he consents to.
Maṇimēkhalai assumes the form of the Vidyādhara Kāyaśaṇḍikai,
which leads to Kāyaśaṇḍikai's husband killing the prince. The King
then jails Maṇimēkhalai for her own protection, but at the request of
the Queen, who wishes her dead because of the killing of the prince,
she is released into the court, where, however, she manages to convert
the Queen.
There are many other sub-plots and legendary tales told in the poem,
and it closes with Maṇimēkhalai seeking to understand the teachings
of the other great religions of the time, and then hearing the
Buddha-Dhamma from Aṟavaṇa Aḍigaḷ, a Buddhist monk of great
learning.
He teaches her the central teaching of the Buddha concerning the
four noble truths and the twelvefold conditional origination, and it is
with this, and Maṇimēkhalai's determination to follow the teaching,
and assurance therefore of liberation, that the poem ends.
To my mind, at least, chapters XXVII and XXVIX, valuable as they
are for understanding the date of the work, could easily be skipped, as
they interrupt the plot greatly, and seem to be a separate disquisition