Abhidhamma Pitaka
Encyclopedia
The Abhidhamma Pitaka is the last of the three pitakas (Pali
for "baskets") constituting the Pali Canon
, the scriptures of Theravāda
Buddhism
.
The Abhidhamma pitaka is a detailed scholastic reworking of material appearing in the Sutta
s, according to schematic classifications. It does not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or enumerated lists.
http://www.palitext.com, which offers an option to order them through their website.
says that the abhidhamma methodology looks at things in terms of occasions or events instead of sequences or processes.
then taught it to the gods some years later. Later the Buddha repeated it to Sariputta
who then handed it on to his disciples. This tradition is also evident in the Parivara
, a very late addition to the Vinaya Pitaka, which mentions in a concluding verse of praise to the Buddha that this best of creatures, the lion, taught the three pitakas..
Scholars, however, generally date the Abhidhamma works to originating some time around the third century BCE, 100 to 200 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore the seven Abhidhamma works are generally claimed by scholars not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of disciples and scholars. Dr Rupert Gethin
however said that important elements of abhidhamma methodology probably go back to the Buddha's lifetime. A. K. Warder
and Dr Peter Harvey both suggested early dates for the matikas on which most of the Abidhamma books are based. Abhidhamma started out as elaboration of the suttas, but later developed independent doctrines.
As the last major division of the canon, the Abhidhamma Pitaka has had a checkered history. It was not accepted as canonical by the Mahasanghika school and several other schools. Another school included most of the Khuddaka Nikaya
within the Abhidhamma Pitaka. Also, the Pali version of the Abhidhamma is a strictly Theravada collection, and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by other Buddhist schools. The various Abhidhamma philosophies of the various early schools have no agreement on doctrine and belong to the period of 'Divided Buddhism' (as opposed to Undivided Buddhism
). The earliest texts of the Pali Canon have no mention of (the texts of) the Abhidhamma Pitaka. The Abhidhamma is also not mentioned in some reports of the First Buddhist Council
, which do mention the existence of the texts of the Vinaya
and either the five Nikaya
s or the four Agamas. Other accounts do include the Abhidhamma.
In the Theravadin Abhidhamma Pitaka, unlike the Abhidharma Pitaka of the Sarvastivada
school, ontological theorizing is absent, and the question of ontological status of dharmas remains a moot point. The notion of sabhava (Sanskrit: svabhava) is only utilized in late Theravadin texts. The doctrine of momentariness is also a late addition to Theravada thought. It only appears at the time of Buddhaghosa
.
method; these 42 are only used in the Dhammasangani, whereas the other 122 are used in some of the other books as well.
The main body of the Dhammasangani is in four parts. The first part goes through numerous states of mind, listing and defining by lists of synonyms, factors present in the states. The second deals with material form, beginning with its own mātikā, classifying by ones, twos and so on, and explaining afterwards. The third explains the book's mātikā in terms of the first two parts, as does the fourth, by a different method (and omitting the sutta method).
.
Páli
- External links :* *...
for "baskets") constituting the Pali Canon
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
, the scriptures of Theravāda
Theravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
.
The Abhidhamma pitaka is a detailed scholastic reworking of material appearing in the Sutta
Sutra
Sūtra is an aphorism or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew , as does the medical term...
s, according to schematic classifications. It does not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or enumerated lists.
Translations
The first five books and part of the seventh of the Abhidhamma Pitaka have been translated by the Pali Text SocietyPali Text Society
The Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by T.W. Rhys Davids "to foster and promote the study of Pali texts".Pali is the language in which the texts of the Theravada school of Buddhism is preserved...
http://www.palitext.com, which offers an option to order them through their website.
Nature of abhidhamma
Abhidhamma has been variously described as philosophy, psychology, metaphysics etc. L. S. CousinsL. S. Cousins
Lance Selwyn Cousins is a scholar in the field of Buddhist Studies. Born in Hertfordshire, he studied history and oriental studies at Cambridge University, and took up a post in the Department of Comparative Religion at Manchester University...
says that the abhidhamma methodology looks at things in terms of occasions or events instead of sequences or processes.
Origins
Tradition holds that the Buddha thought the Abhidhamma out immediately after his enlightenmentBodhi
Bodhi is both a Pāli and Sanskrit word traditionally translated into English with the word "enlightenment", but which means awakened. In Buddhism it is the knowledge possessed by a Buddha into the nature of things...
then taught it to the gods some years later. Later the Buddha repeated it to Sariputta
Sariputra
Śāriputra or Sāriputta was one of two chief male disciples of the Buddha along with Maudgalyayana , counterparts to the nuns Khema and Uppalavanna, named the two chief female disciples...
who then handed it on to his disciples. This tradition is also evident in the Parivara
Parivara
Parivara is the third and last book of the Theravadin Vinaya Pitaka. It includes a summary and multiple analyses of the various rules identified in the Vinaya Pitaka's first two books, the Suttavibhanga and the Khandhaka, primarily for didactic purposes...
, a very late addition to the Vinaya Pitaka, which mentions in a concluding verse of praise to the Buddha that this best of creatures, the lion, taught the three pitakas..
Scholars, however, generally date the Abhidhamma works to originating some time around the third century BCE, 100 to 200 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore the seven Abhidhamma works are generally claimed by scholars not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of disciples and scholars. Dr Rupert Gethin
Rupert Gethin
Dr. Rupert Mark Lovell Gethin is a Lecturer in Indian Religions in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and codirector of the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Bristol, and president of the Pali Text Society...
however said that important elements of abhidhamma methodology probably go back to the Buddha's lifetime. A. K. Warder
A. K. Warder
Anthony Kennedy Warder is a scholar of Indology, mostly in Buddhist studies and related fields, such as the Pāli and Sanskrit languages. He has written 15 books and numerous articles. He currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit in the School of East Asian Studies in the...
and Dr Peter Harvey both suggested early dates for the matikas on which most of the Abidhamma books are based. Abhidhamma started out as elaboration of the suttas, but later developed independent doctrines.
As the last major division of the canon, the Abhidhamma Pitaka has had a checkered history. It was not accepted as canonical by the Mahasanghika school and several other schools. Another school included most of the Khuddaka Nikaya
Khuddaka Nikaya
The Khuddaka Nikaya is the last of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism...
within the Abhidhamma Pitaka. Also, the Pali version of the Abhidhamma is a strictly Theravada collection, and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by other Buddhist schools. The various Abhidhamma philosophies of the various early schools have no agreement on doctrine and belong to the period of 'Divided Buddhism' (as opposed to Undivided Buddhism
Pre-sectarian Buddhism
The term pre-sectarian Buddhism is used by some scholars to refer to the Buddhism that existed before the various subsects of Buddhism came into being. Other terms that have been used to refer to this first period of Buddhism are: the earliest Buddhism, original Buddhism and the Buddhism of the...
). The earliest texts of the Pali Canon have no mention of (the texts of) the Abhidhamma Pitaka. The Abhidhamma is also not mentioned in some reports of the First Buddhist Council
First Buddhist council
The First Buddhist council was convened in the year following the Buddha's Parinibbana, which is 543–542 BCE according to Theravada tradition, at various earlier dates according to certain Mahayana traditions, and various later dates according to certain Western estimates. According to late...
, which do mention the existence of the texts of the Vinaya
Vinaya
The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
and either the five Nikaya
Nikaya
Nikāya is a word of meaning "collection", "assemblage", "class" or "group" in both Pāḷi and Sanskrit. It is most commonly used in reference to the Buddhist texts of the Sutta Piṭaka, but can also refer to the monastic divisions of Theravāda Buddhism...
s or the four Agamas. Other accounts do include the Abhidhamma.
In the Theravadin Abhidhamma Pitaka, unlike the Abhidharma Pitaka of the Sarvastivada
Sarvastivada
The Sarvāstivāda were an early school of Buddhism that held to 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'. Vasubandhu's states:-Name:...
school, ontological theorizing is absent, and the question of ontological status of dharmas remains a moot point. The notion of sabhava (Sanskrit: svabhava) is only utilized in late Theravadin texts. The doctrine of momentariness is also a late addition to Theravada thought. It only appears at the time of Buddhaghosa
Buddhaghosa
Bhadantācariya Buddhaghoṣa（Chinese: 覺音）was a 5th-century Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddha's path to liberation...
.
Contents
The Abhidhamma Pitaka consists of seven books:- DhammasanganiDhammasanganiThe Dhammasangani is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.Translations:* A Buddhist Manual of Psychological Ethics, tr C. A. F...
( or ) - VibhangaVibhangaThe Vibhanga is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka. One known English translation is contained in The Book of Analysis, first published in 1969....
- DhatukathaDhatukathaThe Dhatukatha is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.Translation: Discourse on Elements, tr U Narada, 1962, Pali Text Society, Bristol...
(dhātukathā) - PuggalapannattiPuggalapannattiThe Puggalapannatti is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.Translation: A Designation of Human Types, tr B. C. Law, 1922, Pali Text Society, Bristol...
(-paññatti) - KathavatthuKathavatthuKathāvatthu , translated as "Points of Controversy", is a Buddhist scripture, one of the seven books in the Theravada Abhidhamma Pitaka...
(kathā-) - YamakaYamakaThe Yamaka is part of the Pali Canon, the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. It is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which according to the scriptures themselves was taught by the Buddha himself...
- PatthanaPatthanaThe Patthana is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism, where it is included in the Abhidhamma Pitaka.Translation: Conditional Relations, 1969- , in progress, 2 volumes so far tr U Narada, Pali Text Society, Bristol...
(paţţhāna)
Dhammasangani
The Dhammasangani begins with a mātikā (translated as matrix) which lists classifications of dhammas (translated as phenomena, ideas, states, etc.). The mātikā starts with 22 threefold classifications, such as good/bad/unclassified, and then follows with 100 twofold classifications according to the Abhidhamma method. Many of these classifications are not exhaustive, and some are not even exclusive. The mātikā ends with 42 twofold classifications according to the suttaSutra
Sūtra is an aphorism or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew , as does the medical term...
method; these 42 are only used in the Dhammasangani, whereas the other 122 are used in some of the other books as well.
The main body of the Dhammasangani is in four parts. The first part goes through numerous states of mind, listing and defining by lists of synonyms, factors present in the states. The second deals with material form, beginning with its own mātikā, classifying by ones, twos and so on, and explaining afterwards. The third explains the book's mātikā in terms of the first two parts, as does the fourth, by a different method (and omitting the sutta method).
Vibhanga
The Vibhanga consists of 18 chapters, each dealing with a different topic. For example the first chapter deals with the five aggregates. A typical chapter consists of three parts. The first of these parts explains the topic according to the sutta method, often word-for-word as in actual suttas. The second is Abhidhamma explanation, mainly by lists of synonyms as in the Dhammasangani. The third employs questions and answers, based on the mātikā, such as "How many aggregates are good?"Dhatukatha
This book covers both the matika and various topics, mostly from the Vibhanga, relating them to the 5 aggregates, 12 bases and 18 elements. The first chapter is fairly simple: "In how many aggregates etc. are good dhammas etc. included?" The book progressively works up to more complicated questions: "From how many aggregates etc. are the dhammas dissociated from attention etc. dissociated?"Puggalapannatti
This book starts with its own matika, which begins with some standard lists but then continues with lists of persons grouped numerically from ones to tens. This latter portion of the matika is then explained in the main body of the work. Most of the lists of persons and many of the explanations are also found in the Anguttara NikayaAnguttara Nikaya
The Anguttara Nikaya is a Buddhist scripture, the fourth of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that comprise the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism...
.