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HIS AGE, LIFE AND WORKS
[XVII This fact is of considerable interest, since it proves that before S'aikara the Mayavada was practically unknown outside of tho circles of Aupanisadas; for it had already been established by Gauḍapada, the guru of S'ankara's guru. It is not the intrinsic value of a system, or the originality of its teachings, that secured it notoriety throughout India, unloss a great author and debator takes it up, systematically developes it in every detail, and successfully upholds it against all opponents. His fame thon outshines that of the original thinker whose merit was apt to be overlooked,'
2.
Haribhadra's Life,
We know very little about Haribhadra from himself; all that he chooses to tell us is containel in the subscriptions to his numerous works. From them we collect the following information: (1) he obeyed the command of Jinabhata, an acarys of the Sitämbaras (S'vetambaras); (2) he was the pupil of Acarya Jinadlatta, an ornament of the Vidyadhara kula. (gaccha); (3) he was a spiritual son of the nun Yakinimahattara
Some more facts are directly manifested by the works of Haribhadra: (4) the us, in the last verse of most of his works, of the word virala, which may have reference to some event in his life; (5) his intimate knowledge not only of Jainism, but also of the teachings of the heterodox systems, evinced in his Anokantajayapataka and his Tika of this work, as well as by his writing a commentary on Dignaga's Nyayapraves'a; (6) his writing a great number of works.
It goes without saying that the contemporaries of Haribhadra knew a great deal more about his life than is contained in the above six items, but it is equally true that in oral tradition sober history is apt to be gradually changed into legend, a strange mixture of facts and fiction, which we can separate from each other with some degree of plausibility only in the simplest cases. Occasionally, however, tradition has stories of an entirely fictitious kind and originally unconnected with its hero. Thus, in the ease in hand, curiosity was naturally excited, by point (4), to satisfy which a tale full of miraculous and wholly incredible incidents is added in the legendary life of Haribhadra; it exceeds in length all remaining parts of the legends taken together; but no reference to it is made in the oldest accounts.
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Before analysing the traditions about Haribhadra's life, I enumerate the sources
from which it is known.
(a) A short paragraph at the end of Municandra's Tika of Haribhadra's Upadesapadani; this Tiki was finished in Vikrama Samvat 1174-1118 A. D.; the passage in question has been printed by Kalyanavijaya 1. e. p. 5a and Jinavijaya 1. c. p. 4, note 14.
(b) Eight gathas (52-59) in Jinadatta's Ganadharasärdhas'ataka, written between Samvat 1169 and 1211-1112-1154 A. D. The text is edited in A. Weber, Verzeichniss der Sanskrit und Präkrit-Handschriften, II p. 982 L
(a) The ninth S'rniga of Prabhäcandra's Prabhavakacarita, finished Samvat 13841278 A. D. (the name of the author is wrongly given as Candraprabha on the title of the N. S. edition, 1909).
1 Thus the Dhvani-theory also seems to have been ignored until Anandavardhana composed the Dhvanyàloka, the commentary on the original treatise in Karikis by an unknown author, and thereby brought this theory to such prominence, that nearly all later writers on Alamkara have adopted it. I am, therefore, also persuaded that nihilistic and idealistic teachings which did exist in early Buddhism passed unnoticed by, and did not provoke the opposition, of Brahmanical philosophers until Nagarjuna did for the Sunyavada and Vasubandhu for the Vijanavade, what long after them Sankara has done for the Mayavada. 2 All the details stated above are given in the subsoription of the Sisyahita, bis Tika of the Avasyakasutra ; in other places only one or other detail is mentioned.
3
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