Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra's Collection of Views on Yoga With a New Translation of Haribhadra's Yogadrstisamuccaya by Christopher Key Chapple and John Thomas Casey

CHAPTER ONE: The Life Story of Haribhadra

1 CHAPTER ONE The Life Story of Haribhadra Haribhadra lived in India during a time of great philosophical diversity. The aftermath of the post-Gupta, pre-Islamic era witnessed a proliferation of Puråœas, the flowering of £aiva and Vaiÿœava philosophy, early phases of the bhakti devotional movement in the south, the dawn of Tantra with a correlating emphasis on goddess worship, and the ongoing observance of the Vedic sacrificial system. Buddhism and Yoga were both strong presences within India and offered the most direct competition to Jainism, in that all three systems share an emphasis on self-effort in the quest toward spiritual uplift and liberation. In this book we will explore one particular text, the Yogad®ÿ÷isamuccaya, that highlights Haribhadra’s response to this complex religious landscape. Haribhadra, according to one account, was the son of £ankarabha ÷÷a and his wife, Gan •gå, born into the Brahmin caste. He lived either in BrahmapurŸ or in Citrak™÷a, which is “identified with Chittor, the capital of Mewar in Rajasthan.”1 He eventually became a Jaina monk of the Vidyådhara gaccha, headed by Jinabha÷a, and he wandered throughout Western India as a member of the £vetåmbara order. This brings us to the question: when did Haribhadra live? Traditionally, Jainas have placed his dates from 459 to 529 C.E., which fits within the post-Gupta, pre-Islamic time frame. However , in 1919, Muni Jinavijayaji, a Jaina monk and scholar, published an extensive critique of these dates, noting that Haribhadra had quoted prominent authors who flourished after 2 RECONCILING YOGAS his supposed dates. As a result of this essay, Jaina and Western scholars alike have accepted later dates for Haribhadra, also known as Haribhadras™ri, from 700 to 770 of the Common Era. However , R. Williams contends that, in fact, some of the texts attributed to Haribhadra could have been written in the sixth century and suggests that there were two Haribhadras, with the eighthcentury Haribhadra, whom he calls YåkinŸ-putra, imitating the style of an earlier master.2 Most scholars agree with the assessment that Haribhadra lived during the eighth century rather than the sixth, and, although it cannot be denied that various people wrote under the name “Haribhadra,” the consensus appears to favor a single Jaina £vetåmbara author being responsible for at least most of the works attributed to him.3 Due to its discussion of Tantra, it seems that the Yogad®ÿ÷isamuccaya was written in the eighth century and, if one maintains the theory of two Haribhadras, would have been composed by Haribhadra YåkinŸputra , whose name in fact appears on the colophon. A third Haribhadra lived in the twelfth century and wrote a commentary on Umåsvåti’s Praÿamaratiprakaraœa.4 Hemacandra’s Yoga§åstra (twelfth century) seems informed by Haribhadra’s Yoga texts, and Ya§ovijaya (seventeenth century ) summarized and expressed renewed interest in Haribhadra’s works, particularly on Yoga. His writings continue to be well known in the £vetåmbara Jaina community. Several traditional authors recorded legendary tales about the life, adventures, misadventures, and work of this prodigious scholar. Phyllis Granoff has summarized the primary stories about or related to Haribhadra, drawing from a variety of works that begin to appear in the twelfth century, including Bhadre§vara’s Kahåvali, Sarvaråjamuni’s commentary on Jinadatta’s Gaœadharårdha §ataka, Prabhåcandra’s Kathåko§a (1077 C.E.), a collection of stories known as the Puråtanaprabandhasaçgraha, the Prabhåvakacarita , also attributed to a scholar known as Prabhåcandra, but at a later date (1277 C.E.), and Råja§ekaras™ri’s Prabandhako§a (1349 C.E.) In these stories, two primary themes remain constant: Haribhadra’s conversion to Jainism and his conflict with the Buddhists. The first set of stories provides a biographical narrative. In his early years, Haribhadra, a member of the Brahmin caste, 3 THE LIFE STORY OF HARIBHADRA achieved a great degree of learning. He became quite arrogant about his academic accomplishments and tied a golden plate around his belly to prevent it from bursting from the weight of all his knowledge. In another version, he also carries a “twig from the jambu tree to show to all that there was no one his equal in all of JambudvŸpa, that is, in all the civilized world. He also carried a spade, a net, and...