One angel helps her magically disappear to an island while the prince tries to chase her, grants her powers to change forms and appear as someone else.
She then goes to goddess Kannaki temple in Vanci (Chera kingdom), prays, listens to different religious scholars, and practices severe self-denial to attain Nirvana (release from rebirths).
[10][11] Along with its twin-epic Cilappatikaram, the Manimekalai is widely considered as an important text that provides insights into the life, culture and society of the Tamil regions (India and Sri Lanka) in the early centuries of the common era.
[17] The colonial era Tamil scholar S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar proposed in 1927 that it was either composed "much earlier than AD 400" or "decisively to be a work of the fifth century at the earliest".
[3][14] The Silappadikaram builds on human emotional themes and includes some sections praising Jains, while the Manimekalai is Buddhist propaganda that "attacks and ridicules Jainism", according to Kamil Zvelebil.
[26] Manimekalai, her delicate beauty and extraordinary talents introduced in the epic; Kovalan and Kannaki remembered;[27] Manimekalai's mother Madhavi and grandmother Chitrapati learn that Manimekali insists on being a nun, lead a religious life and that she will not dance or otherwise attend the festival; more description of the Chola city, people and the festival.
[27] Manimekalai goes to a city garden, away from the festival center, with her friend Sutamati;[28] continued description of the Chola city, people and the festival, mentions a "Jain monk, naked and waving a fly-whisk to avoid hurting unseen fragile insect" as well as "Kalamukhas [a subtradition of Shaivism] wearing oleander flower garlands and rudraksha mala, body smeared with ashes, acting madly".
Sudhamati describes she is from Bengal, her father a Brahmin who tended fire [Vedic], and they came to the south on a [Hindu] pilgrimage towards Kanyakumari, related to the journey of Rama in the Ramayana.
[30] A description of Goddess Manimekhala and her powers; she advises the nuns to go to the Chakravala-kottam, that is "Temple of Heaven" – monk gathering spaces with Buddhist mounds – to avoid being chased by the prince.
A history of the "Temple of Heaven" follows along with their then-popular name "City of the Dead";[31] the epic recites the story of a Brahmin named Shankalan enters the mound by mistake at night and is confronted by a sorceress with a skull in her hand accompanied by screaming jackal-like noises, the Brahmin flees in terror, then dies in shock in front of his mother Gotami.
The mother questions the four Vedas, the goddess explains the Buddhist theory of samsaras, mount Meru, and realms of rebirth.
[31] The goddess meets the prince and tells him to forget about Manimekalai because she is destined to live a monastic life; She then awakens and meets Sudhamati, tells her Manimekalai is safe on a distant island and to remind her mother Madhavi not to search and worry about her daughter;[32] the goddess then disappeared into the sky; a description of the ongoing festival continues, along with a mention of upset women, infidelities of their husbands, the tired and sleeping young boys and girls who earlier in the day had run around in their costumes of Hindu gods (Vishnu) and goddesses (Durga);[32] Sudhamati walked through the sleeping city, when a stone statue spoke to her and told her that Manimekalai will return to the city in a week with a complete knowledge, like Buddha, of all her past births as well as yours.
[33] She weeps while walking on the beach, recalls her friend, her father Kovalan who was unjustly executed in Madurai, her mother and all loved ones.
[34] The epic mentions she meeting a sage named Brahma Dharma, being a Buddhist in the last birth, of Gandhara, Naganadu, the north city of Avanti, and other locations significant to Indian Buddhism.
The goddess asks Manimekalai to study the "deceitful theories of various religions", and teaches her magical mantras (Dharani) to overcome sufferings of ascetic life and hunger.
The goddess says, only those who have amassed great merit in past lives and remained Buddhist over their many births are able to see and worship Buddha's footprints in their present life.
Back with her mother and friend Sudhamati in the Chola kingdom, she finds the old Buddhist ascetic Aravana Adigal after several efforts to locate him.
[38] Aputra then meets and accuses the Brahmins of twisting the meaning of the Veda verses taught by Brahma born from the navel of Vishnu who holds a golden disc as his weapon.
She laments that her husband of "innumerable" previous births is dead because of her decisions, adding that the endless cycles of suffering would continue without her monastic ways.
[49] The Buddhist monks tell the king legends of Vishnu, Parashurama and Durga, then the errors of the prince and finally his death.
[56] The Hindu sub-schools mentioned include Vedanta, Mimamsa, Nyaya, Samkhya, Vaisheshika, Shaivism [Shive], Vaishnavism [Vishnu], Brahmavada [Brahma] and Vedavadi [no deity, the Vedas are supreme].
The last canto, along with a few before it, are the epic's statement on the karma theory of Buddhism, as understood by its author, and how rebirths and future sufferings have links to past causes and present events in various realms of existence (samsara).
[citation needed] The epic gives much information on the history of Tamil Nadu, Buddhism and its place during that period, contemporary arts and culture, and the customs of the times.
It presents the author's view of the Buddhist doctrine of Four Noble Truths (ārya-satyāni), Dependent Origination (pratītyasamutpāda), mind (citra), goddesses, miracles, mantras, rebirth, merit-making, begging by monks and nuns, helping the poor and needy.
[68] According to a 1927 thesis of Rao Bahadur Krishnaswāmi Aiyangar, the Manimekalai contains "nothing that may be regarded as referring to any form of Mahayana Buddhism, particularly the Sunyavada as formulated by Nagarjuna".
[70] According to G John Samuel and others, based in part on the antiquity of the text and theories, it was believed that the epic was from an early Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhist school, but more recent studies suggest that the Buddhist epic Manimekalai belonged to an early form of Mahayana Buddhism influenced by ideas now attributed to scholars such as Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Buddhagosha, Buddhadatta and Dharmapala.
[73] According to a review by the Brahmin scholar Subrahmanya Aiyar in 1906, Manimekalai in puritan terms is not an epic poem, but a grave disquisition on philosophy.
[74] Like the Silappatikaram, this epic also makes several references to the Ramayana, such as a setu (bridge) being built by monkeys in canto 5, line 37 (however the location is Kanyakumari rather than Dhanushkodi).
Further, canto 18, lines 19 to 26, refers to the illegitimate love of Indra for Ahalya the wife of Rishi Gautama(Pandian, 1931, p.149)(Aiyangar, 1927, p.28).
[75][76][77] This seems to indicate that the story of the Ramayana was familiar in the Tamil land since very early times and Rama was acknowledged as a God, even before the Kamba Ramayanam of the 12th century.