[Manteiv]

My point was that the Buddha did not credit a supernatural deity with giving him the dhamma.

sure

but what about a similar superstition that atman (self) found or revealed the Dhamma?

for example, the Buddha is reported to have said:

For a person whose mind is concentrated, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I know & see things as they actually are.' It is in the nature of things (dhammatā esā) that a person whose mind is concentrated knows & sees things as they actually are.

AN 11.2 according to Shinichi Tsuda, such verses are about the ontological basis of revelation

for example, are the Buddha's teachings personal relevations about phenomenological (subjective) experience or are they teachings about the inherent (ontological; objective) nature of phenonema that has been revealed/uncovered?



As a representative of this position, I shall use Shinichi
Tsuda. As is well known, in the Mahavagga of the Vinaya Pitaka there is
a stanza which says that immediately after the Buddha realized the
progress and reversal of the Twelve Links, in samadhi (the meditative
state), "all dhammas revealed themselves" (patubhavanti dhamma) to
him. This "all dhammas", according to Dr. Koshiro Tamaki, means the
"original state of all dhammas" or "the root of all dhammas". Tsuda
maintains that the basis of Dependent Origination is in the structure of
the Dharma. In the same paper, he repeatedly used terms such as
"ontological basis", "the existence of the basis", "the one source of the
world", etc.

link •Ontology is the study of things & their nature — what is.
•Epistemology is the study of knowledge — how we know.
•Logic is the study of valid reasoning — how to reason.
•Ethics is the study of right and wrong — how we should act.
•Phenomenology is the study of our experience — how we experience.