Abhidharma
Bhikkhu Bodhi calls it "an abstract and highly technical systemization of the [Buddhist] doctrine," which is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation.
[8] The prominent Western scholar of Abhidharma, Erich Frauwallner, has said that these Buddhist systems are "among the major achievements of the classical period of Indian philosophy.
[11] Other scholars on the topic, such as Nyanaponika Thera and Dan Lusthaus, describe Abhidharma as a Buddhist phenomenology[12][13] while Noa Ronkin and Kenneth Inada equate it with process philosophy.
[21] Western scholars of Buddhist studies such as André Migot, Edward J. Thomas, Erich Frauwallner, Rupert Gethin, and Johannes Bronkhorst have argued that the Abhidharma was based on early and ancient lists of doctrinal terms which are called mātikās (Sanskrit: mātṛkā).
Migot argues that this Mātṛkā Piṭaka, said to have been recited by Mahākāśyapa at the First Council according to the Ashokavadana, likely began as a condensed version of the Buddhist doctrine that was expanded over time.
He also points out another such list that occurs in various texts "comprises several groups of elements of import for entanglement in the cycle of existence" and was modeled on the Oghavagga of the Samyuttanikaya.
[37] These lists were intended as a basic way of explaining the Buddhist doctrine, and are likely to have been accompanied by oral explanations, which continued to develop and expand and were later written down.
For example, terms could be grouped into those things that are rūpa (form, physical) or arūpa (formless), saṃskṛtam (constructed) or asaṃskṛtam, and the triad of kuśalam (wholesome), akuśalam (unwholesome), or avyākṛtam (indetermined).
[39] Over time, the initial scholastic method of listing and categorizing terms was expanded in order to provide a complete and comprehensive systematization of the Buddhist doctrine.
"[40] As Frauwallner explains, due to this scholastic impulse, lists grew in size, different mātṛkās were combined with each other to produce new ones, and new concepts and schemas were introduced, such as the differentiation of cittas and caitasikās and new ways of connecting or relating the various elements with each other.
As Noa Ronkin writes, "post-canonical Abhidharma texts became complex philosophical treatises employing sophisticated methods of argumentation and independent investigations that resulted in doctrinal conclusions quite far removed from their canonical antecedents.
[52] In the modern era, only the Abhidharma texts of the Sarvāstivādins and the Theravādins have survived as complete collections, each consisting of seven books with accompanying commentarial literature.
[6] The Theravada tradition is unique in regarding its Abhidharma as having been taught in its complete form by the Buddha as a single teaching, with the exception of the Kathavatthu, which contains material relating to later disputes and was held to only have been presented as an outline.
[6] According to their tradition, devas built a beautiful jeweled residence for the Buddha to the north-east of the bodhi tree, where he meditated and delivered the Abhidharma teachings to gathered deities in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven, including his deceased mother Māyā.
Dhammajoti, the commentator Yaśomitra even states that "the Sautrantikas can be said to have an abhidharma collection, i.e., as texts that are declared to be varieties of sutra in which the characteristics of factors are described.
"[59] Religion portal The Abhidharma texts' field of inquiry extends to the entire Buddhadharma, since their goal was to outline, systematize and analyze all of the teachings.
This concept has been variously translated as "factors" (Collett Cox), "psychic characteristics" (Bronkhorst),[61] "phenomena" (Nyanaponika) and "psycho-physical events" (Ronkin).
[62] In Abhidhamma literature, these lists of dhammas systematically arranged and they were seen as the ultimate entities or momentary events which make up the fabric of people's experience of reality.
Cittas (awareness events) are never experienced on their own, but are always intentional and hence accompanied by various mental factors (cetasikas), in a constantly flowing stream of experience occurrences.
By carefully watching the coming and going of dhammas, and being able to identify which ones are wholesome and to be cultivated, and which ones are unwholesome and to be abandoned, the Buddhist meditator makes use of the Abhidharma as a schema to liberate his mind and realize that all experiences are impermanent, not-self, unsatisfactory and therefore not to be clung to.
The examination of these characteristics was held to be extremely important, the Sarvastivada Mahavibhasa states "Abhidharma is [precisely] the analysis of the svalaksana and samanya-laksana of dharmas".
The Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosa, the most influential classical Theravada treatise, states that not-self does not become apparent because it is concealed by "compactness" when one does not give attention to the various elements which make up the person.
"[73] Svabhava in the early Abhidhamma texts was then not a term which meant ontological independence, metaphysical essence or underlying substance, but simply referred to their characteristics, which are dependent on other conditions and qualities.
[77] This view that dharmas are empty or void is also found in the Lokānuvartana-sūtra (‘The Sutra of Conformity with the World’, Taisho No.807) which survives in Chinese and Tibetan translation, and may have been a scripture of the Purvasailas, which was a sub-school of the Mahasamghika.
This became the basis for the Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣa Śāstra ("Great Commentary"), an encyclopedic work which became the central text of the Vaibhāṣika tradition who became the Kasmiri Sarvāstivāda Orthodoxy under the patronage of the Kushan empire.
[100][101] On the basis of textual evidence as well as inscriptions at Nāgārjunakoṇḍā, Joseph Walser concludes that at least some Mahāsāṃghika sects probably had an abhidharma collection, and that it likely contained five or six books.
These all vied with each other, producing many wondrous offshoots, each giving rise to its own theoretical system.The Chéngshí School taught a progression of twenty-seven stations for cultivating realization, based upon the teachings of this text.
Their focus was on doctrine, but as it flowed from the practice of meditative centering (yoga), rather than as it was understood in acts of conceptual apprehension.The Prajñāpāramitā sutras and associated literature are influenced by Abhidharma.
[121] There is also plenty of Abhidharma material (mainly Sarvāstivāda) in the Dà zhìdù lùn (The Treatise on the Great Prajñāpāramitā; Chinese: 大智度論, Mahāprajñāpāramitāupadeśa* Taishō Tripiṭaka no.
The work claims it is written by Nāgārjuna (c. 2nd century), but various scholars such as Étienne Lamotte and Paul Demiéville, have questioned this, holding that the author was instead a Sarvāstivāda monk learned in Abhidharma who became a Mahāyānist and wrote this text.
