This article is about the Buddhist author of an Abhisamayalankara commentary. For the Jain logician, see Haribhadra

Haribhadra

Haribhadra Suri was a Svetambara mendicant Jain leader and author.-History:There are multiple contradictory dates assigned to his birth. These include 459, 478, and 529. However, given his familiarity with Dharmakirti, a more likely choice would be sometime after 650...

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Haribhadra ( , Seng-ge Bzang-po) was an 8th-century (AD) Buddhist philosopher, and a disciple of Shantarakshita

Shantarakshita

' was a renowned 8th century Indian Buddhist Brahmin and abbot of Nalanda University. Śāntarakṣita founded the philosophical school known as Yogacara-Svatantrika-Madhyamaka, which united the Madhyamaka tradition of Nagarjuna, the Yogacara tradition of Asanga and the logical and epistemological...

, an early Indian Buddhist missionary to Tibet. Haribhadra's commentary on the Abhisamayalankara

Abhisamayalankara

The ' , abbreviated AA, is one of five Sanskrit-language Mahāyāna Buddhist scriptures which Maitreya--a Buddha or bodhisattva --is said to have revealed to Asaga...

was one of the most influential of the twenty-one Indian commentaries on that text, perhaps because of its author's status as Shantarakshita's student. Like his master, Haribhadra is retrospectively considered by Tibetan doxographical

Doxography

Doxography is a term used especially for the works of classical historians, describing the points of view of past philosophers and scientists. The term was coined by the German classical scholar Hermann Alexander Diels.- Classic Greek philosophy :...

 tradition to represent the Yogacara Svatantrika Madhyamaka school.

Haribhadra's interpretation of the Abhisamayalankara, particularly his four-kaya model, was controversial and contradicted the earlier normative interpretation popularized by Vimuktasena. Haribhadra claims, that Abhisamayalamkara chapter 8 is describing Buddhahood through four kayas: svabhavikakaya, [jnana]dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. Haribhadra's position was in turn challenged by Ratnakarashanti and Abhayakaragupta

Abhayakaragupta

Abhayākaragupta was born in the city of Gaur, West Bengal, in Eastern India, and is thought to have flourished in the late 11th-early 12th century CE, and died in 1125....

. In Tibet the debate continued, with Tsongkhapa championing Haribhadra's position and Gorampa

Gorampa

Gorampa Sonam Senge was an important philosopher in the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. He was the author of a vast collection of commentaries on sutra and tantra whose work was influential throughout Tibetan Buddhism. He instituted the formal study of logic in the Sakya tradition and...

 of the Sakya

Sakya

The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...

school promoting the other.