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Abhidhamma

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abhidhamma

Contents of this page

Introduction
Origins
Theravāda Abhidhamma
Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma

See also
5 References
6 External links

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Introduction

Abhidharma (Sanskrit) or Abhidhamma (Pāli) is a category of Buddhist scriptures that attempts to use Buddhist teachings to create a systematic, abstract description of all worldly phenomena. The Abhidharma represents a generalization and reorganization of the doctrines presented piecemeal in the narrative sūtra tradition.

The literal translation of the term Abhidharma is unclear. Two possibilities are most commonly given: 1) abhi- higher or special + dharma- teaching, philosophy, thus making Abhidharma the 'higher teachings', or 2) abhi - about + dharma of the teaching, translating it instead as 'about the teaching' or even 'meta-teaching'.

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Origins

Scholars generally believe that the Abhidharma emerged after the time of the Buddha, as the growth of monastic centers and support for the Buddhist saṅgha provided the resources and expertise necessary to systematically analyze the early teachings. However, some scholars believe that rather than being wholly created by later thinkers, the Abhidharma represents an expansion of a set of mnemonic lists and categories that were employed by early Buddhists to preserve the oral tradition.

Numerous apparently independent Abhidharma traditions arose in India, roughly during the period from the 2nd or 3rd Century BCE to the 5th Century CE. The 7th Century Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang reportedly collected Abhidharma texts from seven different traditions. In the modern era, only the Abhidharmas of the Sarvastivādins and the Theravādins have survived intact, each consisting of seven books. The Theravāda Abhidharma, the Abhidhamma Pitaka (discussed below), is preserved in Pāli, while the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma is mostly preserved only in Chinese - the (likely Sanskrit) original texts having been lost. A small number of other Abhidharma texts of unknown origin are preserved in translation in the Chinese canon.

Traditionally, Theravada Buddhists have been of the belief that the Abhidhamma was not a later addition to the tradition, but rather represented the first, original understanding of the teachings by the Buddha. According to myth, shortly after his awakening the Buddha spent several days in meditation, during which he formulated the Abhidhamma. Later, he traveled to the heavenly realm and taught the Abhidhamma to the divine beings that dwelled there, including his deceased mother Mahāmāyā, who reincarnated as a celestial being. The tradition holds that the contents of the teachings given in the heavenly realm were related to the monk Śāriputra, who passed them on. The Abhidhamma is thus presented as a pure and undiluted form of the teaching that was too difficult for most practitioners of the Buddha's time to grasp. Instead, the Buddha taught by the method related in the various suttas, giving appropriate, immediately applicable teachings as each situation arose, rather than attempting to set forth the Abhidhamma in all its complexity and completeness. Thus, there is a similarity between the traditions of the Adhidhamma and that of the Mahayana, which also claimed to be too difficult for the people living in the Buddha's time.

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Theravāda Abhidamma

The Abhidhamma Piṭaka is the third piṭaka, or basket, of the Tipiṭaka (Sanskrit: Tripiṭaka), the canon of the Theravāda school of Buddhism. It consists of the seven sections as described below.

  1. Dhamma Saṅganī ('Enumeration of Factors') - Describes the fundamental phenomena or dhamma which constitute human experience.
  2. Vibhaṅga ('Analysis') - An analysis of various topics by a variety of methods, including catechism using material from the Dhamma Sangani.
  3. Dhātu Kathā ('Discussion of Elements') - Some interrelations between various items from the first two books, formulated as sets of questions and answers.
  4. Puggala Paatti ('Descriptions of Individuals') - An enumeration of the qualities of certain different 'personality types'. These types were believed to be useful in formulating teachings that an individual would respond to positively.
  5. Kathāvatthu ('Points of Controversy') - A collection of debates on points of doctrine, traditionally said to have been compiled by Moggaliputta Tissa at the Buddhist Council sponsored by King Ashoka, which took place in the 3rd Century BCE.
  6. Yamaka ('The Pairs') - Deals with various questions relating to interrelations within various lists of items; here the items belong to the same list, whereas in the Dhātu Kathā they are in different lists.
  7. Patthāna ('Foundational Conditions' or 'Relations') - The laws of interaction by which the dhamma described in the Dhamma Sangani operate.

These have all been published in romanized Pali by the Pali Text Society, and most have been translated into English as well. Some scholars date these works from about 400 BCE to about 250 BCE, the first being the oldest and the fifth the latest of the seven. Additional post-canonical texts composed in the following centuries attempted to further clarify the analysis presented in the Abhidhamma texts. The best known such texts are the Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosa and the Abhidhammāvatāra of Buddhadatta.

Early Western translators of the Pāli canon found the Abhidhamma Pitaka the least interesting of the three sections of the Tipiṭaka, and as a result this important aspect of Buddhist philosophy was little studied in the West until the latter half of the 20th Century. Caroline Rhys Davids, a Pāli scholar and the wife of Pali Text Society founder T. W. Rhys Davids, famously described the ten chapters of the Yamaka as "ten valleys of dry bones". Interest in the Abhidhamma has grown in the West as better scholarship on Buddhist philosophy has gradually revealed more information about its origins and significance.

Within the Theravāda tradition, the prominence of the Abhidhamma has varied considerably from country to country, with Burma (Myanmar) placing the most emphasis on the study of the Abhidhamma.

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Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma

The Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma also consists of seven texts. However, comparison of the content of the Sarvastivada texts with that of the Theravada Abhidhamma reveals that it is unlikely that this indicates that one textual tradition originated from the other. In particular, the Theravada Abhidharma contains two texts (the Kathā Vatthu and Puggala Paatti) that seem entirely out of place in an Abhidharma collection.

The texts of the Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma are:

Following these, are the texts that became the authority of the Vaibhasikas, the Kasmiri Sarvastivada Orthodoxy:

Little research in English has been made in these texts.

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See also
Shastra
Sutta Pitaka
Vinaya Pitaka
Pratitya-samutpada
Buddhism
Buddha
Gautama Buddha

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