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HandWiki. Theravāda Abhidhamma. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36548 (accessed on 03 October 2026).
HandWiki. Theravāda Abhidhamma. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36548. Accessed October 03, 2026.
HandWiki. "Theravāda Abhidhamma" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36548 (accessed October 03, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, November 25). Theravāda Abhidhamma. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36548
HandWiki. "Theravāda Abhidhamma." Encyclopedia. Web. 25 November, 2022.
Theravāda Abhidhamma
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The content is sourced from: https://handwiki.org/wiki/Philosophy:Therav%C4%81da_Abhidhamma

The Theravāda Abhidhamma is a scholastic systematization of the Theravāda school's understanding of the highest Buddhist teachings (Abhidhamma). These teachings are traditionally believed to have been taught by the Buddha, though modern scholars date the texts of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka to the 3rd century BCE. Theravāda traditionally sees itself as the vibhajjavāda ("the teaching of analysis"), which reflects the analytical (vibhajjati) method used by the Buddha and early Buddhists to investigate the nature of the person and other phenomena. According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, a modern Theravāda scholar, the Abhidhamma is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." There are different textual layers of Abhidhamma literature. The earliest Abhidhamma works are found in the Pali Canon. Then there are exegetical works which were composed in Sri Lanka in the 5th century. There are also later sub-commentarial works composed in later historical periods.

sub-commentarial philosophy vibhajjavāda

References

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  2. Damien Keown (2004). A Dictionary of Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 2. ISBN:978-0-19-157917-2.
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  5. Cox, Collett (2004). "Abhidharma". MacMillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism. 1. New York: MacMillan Reference USA. pp. 1-7. ISBN 0-02-865719-5. 
  6. Frauwallner, Erich. Kidd, Sophie Francis (translator). Steinkellner, Ernst (editor). Studies in Abhidharma Literature and the Origins of Buddhist Philosophical Systems. SUNY Press. pp. 18, 100.
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  14. Braun, Erik (2013). The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism, and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw, pp. 50-63. University of Chicago Press.
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  26. Karunadasa explains: "Analysis shows that what we take to be one is really many, what appears to be a unity is only a union of several factors. Its purpose is to dispense altogether with the notion of self or substance, the belief that there is an inner and immutable core in our objects of experience. However, analysis can achieve this objective only partially, for when it dispels the notion of substance from what is analysed all that it does is to transfer the notion of substance from one locus to another, from the whole to the parts, from the thing which is analysed to the factors into which it is analysed. The notion of the substantial forest vanishes, yielding place to a multiplicity of equally substantial trees. This inadequacy of the analytical method could be remedied when it is supplemented by synthesis (sangaha), i.e., the interrelating of the factors obtained through analysis. Synthesis shows that the factors into which a thing is analysed are not discrete entities existing in themselves but inter-connected and inter-dependent nodes in a complex web of relationships, so that none of them could be elevated to the level of a substance or discrete self-entity. Thus both analysis and synthesis combine to demonstrate that what is analysed and the factors into which it is analysed are equally non-substantial."(Karunadasa (2010) p. 20-21.)
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