Manimekalai's Aravana Adigal is Naagaarjuna?

[Guest guest]

Atleast that's what Alan Danielou claims in his translation of the

Tamil epic. This in my mind is a dubious claim as the teaching of

Aravana Adigal is very similar to the philosophy of Dignaaga (which

Danielou himself notes) but definitely not the shunyataa of the

Maadhyamika.

 

Danielou actually claims that some verses in Manimekhalai (where

Aravana Adigal teaches Buddhist philosophy to Manimekhalai) are

infact the exact quotes from Dignaaga's Nyaayapravesha. It can be

claimed as Danielou does that Dignaaga was only repeating the words

of an earlier master - but this again has problems as : 1. it cannot

be Naagaarjuna's as his shunyataa is different from the

epistemo/logical philosophy of Dignaaga and 2. Dignaaga in Buddhist

tradition is himself recognized as a great aachaarya having initiated

a new phase of development in Buddhist philosophy - Svaatantra

Vijnaanavaada.

 

Also to be noted is that Dignaaga was originally a brahmin from

Kaanchipuram - a Tamilian. So it is very likely that it was he

himself who's referred to as Aravana Adigal in the Tamil epic. But if

we accept this Dignaaga's date will be pushed back to 2nd century CE,

which goes against Indological dates for him as having existed around

the 5th century CE.