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224
Christian Lindtner
Jambū-jyoti
ātmanātmagrahe tasya tatsvabhāvatvayogataḥ | sadaivāgrahaṇam hy evam vijñeyaṁ karmadoṣataḥ || ataḥ pratyakṣasamsiddhaḥ sarvaprāṇabhṛtam ayam | svayamjyotiḥ sadaivātmā tathā vede 'pi pathyate ||
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 kūṭasthaḥ svayaṁsiddhātmajyotiḥsvarūpeti ca (Upadeśasāhasrī 2.107, etc.). Dharmakirti (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 (Pramāṇaviniscaya 1.38). In Bhartṛhari, one of Haribhadra's other authorities, we come across expressions such as punyatamaṁ jyotis, tamasi jyotiḥ śuddham, etc. (see Väkyapadīya 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 Atman als leuchtend und glanzend, ein altes Erbstuck aus einer Agnilehre, ist auch der Yajnavalkyalehre geläufig" (Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden 1982, p. 110). Numerous other sources could be quoted to the effect that Haribhadra's doctrine of atman as svayamjyotiḥ 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 āgama is no āgama if contradicted by perception or reason.
Jain Education International
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.
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