Yogadrstisamuccaya and Yogavinshika

Author(s): K K Dixit
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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INTRODUCTION
bbadra's description of the various stages in man's journey towards ethi. cal perfection is not only worded in a non-technical terminology but is also as free from sectarianism as was possible under the conditions of his days. Thus next to the vice called 'welcoming the worldly existence' sectarian narrowmindedness (along with the logic-chopping tbat goes with it) is the most prominent target of Haribhadra's denunciation. The point deserves elaboration,
In India of Haribhadra's days various theological creeds - the foremost among which were Brabminism, Buddhism and Jainism - were engaged in a keen competition to win the allegiance of the populace and bitter must have been their mutual bickerings. Haribhadra himself was a Jaina preacher - in all probability a convert from Brahminism - of no mean calibre and he must have seen from close quarters the wranglings indulged in by the votaries of the creeds in question. He therefore raised a voice of protest against this interpecipe war and called upon all theologians to unite on the basis of a broad platform consisting of belief in mokşa and omniscience. In this Haribhadra was in a way proving to be the harbinger of the later-day saint-poets of our vernacular languages who also had called upon all people to unite on the basis of a broad platform consisting of belief in God, but it is doubtful whether his attenipt met with success in his time. The attempt was perhaps beset with certain inberent difficulties. For the details of a theologians' notion of moksa and omniscience logically follow from his metaphysical convictions and Haribhadra knew it--as is evident from his own refutation of absolute momentarism and absolute eternalism, a refutation which he thought fit to insert even in his latest texts on yoga and in the course of which he had argued that the prima facie views in question make mokşa an impossible proposition. Be that as it may, Haribhadra's crusade against theological sectarianism constitutes a unique and admirable chapter in the cultural history of early medieval India.
(vi) The Yogadrstisamuccaya of Haribhadra :
Perhaps we can never have enough of non-sectarianism and yet one feels that the tendency towards it has been carried rather too far by Haribbadra in his Yogadrstisamuccaya-probably the latest of his texts on yoga. The central theme of this text too is man's journey towards cthical perfection, but the stages of this journey are not here given the names well known in the Jaina tradition and earlier employed by Hari. bhodra himself. Thus instead of Apunarbandhakas, Samyagdrstis and Caritrins (farther subdivided into the types deśavirala, sartavirata, kşabakasreni-ūrohin. Vilarāga) we now hear of the yogins adopting the view.points called Milra