History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c18.s2.9

c18.s2.9

The translator of *Manimēkalai*, Dr. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, has claimed that the Buddhist logic propounded in the work is earlier than that of Diṅnāga, and has suggested the fourth century A.D. for the composition of the text.² Rather the evident similarity of the two systems suggests the reverse. It is not probable that the great Buddhist logician borrowed his system almost intact from an obscure Tamil poet, or even from an unknown third source to which both he and Cāttaṇ of Madurā may have been indebted. More probably the author of *Manimēkalai* was himself versed in Diṅnāga’s logic. Therefore we must posit a somewhat later date for the composition of *Manimēkalai* than Dr. Aiyangar would admit, and suggest that it and the kindred "epic" *Cilappatikāram* represent conditions as they existed in South India in the sixth or seventh centuries of the Christian era.