Sapan and Harinanda

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Losal Samten
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Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2014 4:05 pm

Sapan and Harinanda

Post by Losal Samten »

Quoting JKCL:

"Sakya Paṇḍita, who was the crown jewel of all the scholars of this world,
Defeated a heretic, Harinanda, in debate,
Something no one else is known to have done in Tibet".

Is there any more information on this event?
Lacking mindfulness, we commit every wrong. - Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
ཨོཾ་ཧ་ནུ་པྷ་ཤ་བྷ་ར་ཧེ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།
ཨཱོཾ་མ་ཏྲི་མུ་ཡེ་སལེ་འདུ།།
Bristollad
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Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 11:39 am

Re: Sapan and Harinanda

Post by Bristollad »

Himalayan Art Resources reports a little more here:

https://www.himalayanart.org/items/356

"After the Sanskrit publication of Sakya Pandita's definitive treatises on Buddhist logic, the Tse ma rig pi ter, his fame spread throughout eastern, western and central India. Wishing to debate with Sapan, six Indian Tirtika pandits with Harinanda at the lead travelled to Kyirong in Western Tibet (circa 1232)."
The antidote—to be free from the suffering of samsara—you need to be free from delusion and karma; you need to be free from ignorance, the root of samsara. So you need to meditate on emptiness. That is what you need. Lama Zopa Rinpoche
WeiHan
Posts: 670
Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:50 pm

Re: Sapan and Harinanda

Post by WeiHan »

I extract this account from the book "a clear differentiation of the three codes" by Sakya Pandita translated by Dr. Jared Rhoton.

Debate at Kyirong
In about 1240, Sapan visited the border area of Kyirong, which lies almost due
north of Kathmandu and which was the closest Tibetan area to that town. There
he demonstrated his skill as a debater in an encounter with Harinanda, a nonBuddhist
scholar from India. His biographers write of this episode with considerable
interest, for it is the only recorded instance of a major debate between a Tibetan
Buddhist and an adherent of a Brahmanical sect (Trrthika).
The background of the debate is somewhat unclear, but it is reported already
in the fifteenth century that Harinanda came to meet and confute Sapan in Kyirong
in response to the spread of Sapan's fame in parts of eastern and western
India (this is stated in Gorampa's Life ofSapan). Three centuries after the fact, the
biographer NgawangJikten Wangchuk Trakpa, poet-prince of Rinpung (b. 1482),
seems to have dramatized this episode somewhat, writing that Sapan's Treasure of
Reasoning had been translated into Sanskrit by disciples of Sakya5ribhadra and circulated
in India, causing Sapan's fame to spread among the surviving Buddhist
centers in Bengal and Kashmir. Learning of this, Harinanda-here described as a
16 Sakya Pandita's Life and WOrk
celebrated Hindu logician from south India, where he had already defeated Buddhists
in debate-determined to go to Tibet to challenge its author.
Whatever the case may have been, all the sources, including some that are
nearly contemporary, record that the debate's outcome was a resounding defeat for
Harinanda, who abandoned his former creed, cut off his ascetic's topknot, and
took ordination from Sapan as his Buddhist disciple. Sapan wrote some verses in
commemoration of this victory, which are preserved among his writings (some
details of the debate are also given in Gorampa's biography).44 Certain later historians,
including the Fifth Dalai Lama, relate that after his defeat Harinanda attempted
to escape conversion by flying off through the air and that later, upon entering
Tibet, he was killed by the twelve guardian goddesses appointed by
Padmasambhava.45 These and other details found in popular accounts of the contest
are not given by Gorampa, who may not have known them or who possibly
considered them to be fanciful.
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