Humanism of Haribhadra

SR No.: 269045
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Christian Lindtner
Publisher: Z_Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_1_002105.pdf and Nirgranth_Aetihasik_Lekh_Samucchay_Part_2
Publication Year: 2004
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Article & Ascetics
File Size: 2 MB

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Christian Lindtner
Jambu-jyoti
ātmanātmagrahe tasya tatsvabhāvarvayogatah sadaivāgrahanam hy evam vijñeyam karmadoşatah li
atah pratyakşasamsiddhaḥ sarvaprānabhrtam ayam | svayamjyotih sadaivātmā tathā vede 'pi pathyate 11
So he shares a standpoint also often expressed by other Jaina and Bauddha savants. And Sankara expresses himself in almost the same words when speaking of an avagati that is kūtasthaḥ svayamsiddhātmajyotinsvarūpeti ca (Upadeśasāhasrī 2.107, etc.). Dharmakīrti (quoted by Sankara, US 18.142) is basically of the same opinion when speaking of the undivided buddhi which only experiences itself and svayam saiva prakāśate (Pramānaviniscaya 1.38). In Bhartshari, one of Haribhadra's other authorities, we come across expressions such as punyatamam jyotis, tamasi jyotih suddham, etc. (see Vakyapadiya 1.12, 18, etc.). As Haribhadra points out (above), this is an old Vedic idea, for as e.g. Frauwallner observed : "...die alte Vorstellung des Ātman als leuchtend und glanzend, ein altes Erbstuck aus einer Agnilehre, ist auch der Yājñavalkyalehre geläufig" (Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1982, p. 110). Numerous other sources could be quoted to the effect that Haribhadra's doctrine of ātman as svayamjyotih is shared by the agama of many other classical Indian philosophers (“psychologists”).
(The notion of the natural luminosity of reason is common in Europe, too. Descartes, for instance, often speaks of man's intellectus as a lumen naturale and he is, in the Meditationes de Prima Philosophia, aware that mens, dum intelligit, se ad se ipsam quodammodo convertit.)
It is thus a common Indian ideal that, even if the source of Dharma is agama, still agama is no āgama if contradicted by perception or reason,
For long all civilized Romans and Greeks rejected the Christian innovations as pure superstition, but in the long run, as known, the myths and the miracles found more attentive ears than the wisdom of the Greeks. Politics and propaganda proved stronger than truth and science. The sway of lokapakti was successful.
Haribhadra, then, is a noble Indian spokesman of a universal humanism that crusades not only against those that seek freedom through kriyāmātra, but also against those who propagate, in various ways, dharmadvesa.