Haribhadra (Seng-ge Bzang-po)

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

Haribhadra (Seng-ge Bzang-po) was an 8th-century (AD) Buddhist philosopher, and a disciple of Shantarakshita, an early Indian Buddhist missionary to Tibet. Haribhadra's commentary on the "Abhisamayalankara" 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 tradition to represent the Yogacara Svatantrika Madhyamaka school.

Haribhadra's intepretation of the "Abhisamayalankara", particularly his four-kaya model, was controversial and contradicted the earlier normative interpretation popularized by Vimuktasena. Haribhadra's position was in turn challenged by Ratnakarashanti and Abhayakaragupta. In Tibet the debate continued, with Tsongkhapa championing Haribhadra's position and Gorampa of the Sakya school promoting the other. ["Buddhahood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet" By John J. MakranskyPublished by SUNY Press, 1997. ISBN 0791434311, 9780791434314 494 pages]

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