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The Humanism of Haribhadra
221
dharmam ekāntakalyānam rājan dharmodayāya te vaksyāmi, dharmaḥ siddhim hi yāti saddharmabhājane ||
prāg dharmo 'bhyudayo yatra paścān naihśreyasodayah samprāpyābhyudayam yasmād eti naihśreyasaṁ kramāt 11
sukham abhyudayas tatra mokṣo naiḥśreyaso matah | asya sādhanasaṁksepah sraddhāprajñe samāsatah 1
śrāddhatvad bhājate dharmam prājñatvād vetti tattvatah | prajñā pradhānam tv anayoh śraddhā pūrvamgamāsya tu |
Mahāyāna not only makes the distinction between abhyudaya/ naiḥśreyasa, or between sraddhā/prajñā, but also between punyaand jñānasambhāra. So Mahāyāna obviously also recognizes the double dharma of karma and jñānakānda.
On the other hand, there was no universal agreement about the source, or root of dharma. Some would find the dharmamūla in the eternal Word of the Veda, insisting that no human being could have any knowledge about what was atindriya. This position was taken by Kumārila and others. The Jainas and the Buddhists, on the other hand, would reject the authority of the Veda, replacing it with that of a compassionate and omniscient Bhagavat. Since, in the end, a Bhagavat is a body of knowledge, the difference, after all, may not be that great. Passages such as Manu 2.6 ff :
vedo 'khilo dharmamülaṁ smrtiśīle ca tadvidām | ācāraś caiva sādhūnām ātmanas tustir eva ca ||
reflect a later period where an attempt has been made to combine the authority of the impersonal Vedic Word with that of an authoritative human/divine Bhagavat etc.
When the Buddhists and the Jainas replaced the Word of the Veda with the Word of their omniscient Bhagavat, they faced a new problem. Which Bhagavat was the true and omniscient Bhagavat? Some Buddhists and some Jainas, identifying Bhagavat with Brahman, would opt for a syncretistic solution claiming that one and the same Bhagavat/ Brahman actually appeared in different forms, as Buddha, Visnu, Mahāvīra, etc. Early evidence for such a syncretistic tendency is found in the Lankāvatārasūtra
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