A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma

　　The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha

　　general editor

　　Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　pali text originally edited and translated by

　　Mahathera Narada

　　© 1995

　　Introduction

　　by U Rewata Dhamma and Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　The nucleus of the present book is a medieval compendium of Buddhist philosophy entitled the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. This work is ascribed to Acariya Anuruddha, a Buddhist savant about whom so little is known that even his country of origin and the exact century in which he lived remain in question. Nevertheless, despite the personal obscurity that surrounds the author, his little manual has become one of the most important and influential textbooks of Theravada Buddhism. In nine short chapters occupying about fifty pages in print, the author provides a masterly summary of that abstruse body of Buddhist doctrine called the Abhidhamma. Such is his skill in capturing the essentials of that system, and in arranging them in a format suitable for easy comprehension, that his work has become the standard primer for Abhidhamma studies throughout the Theravada Buddhist countries of South and Southeast Asia. In these countries, particularly in Burma where the study of Abhidhamma is pursued most assiduously, the Abhidhammattha Sangaha is regarded as the indispensable key to unlock this great treasure-store of Buddhist wisdom.

　　The Abhidhamma

　　At the heart of the Abhidhamma philosophy is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, one of the pisions of the Pali canon recognized by Theravada Buddhism as the authoritative recension of the Buddha”s teachings. This canon was compiled at the three great Buddhist councils held in India in the early centuries following the Buddha”s demise: the first, at Rajagaha, convened three months after the Buddha”s Parinibbana by five hundred senior monks under the leadership of the Elder Mahakassapa; the second, at Vesali, a hundred years later; and the third, at Pataliputta, two hundred years later. The canon that emerged from these councils, preserved in the Middle Indian language now called Pali, is known as the Tipitaka, the three "baskets" or collections of the teachings. The first collection, the Vinaya Pitaka, is the book of discipline, containing the rules of conduct for the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis — the monks and nuns — and the regulations governing the Sangha, the monastic order. The Sutta Pitaka, the second collection, brings together the Buddha”s discourses spoken by him on various occasions during his active ministry of forty-five years. And the third collection is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the "basket" of the Buddha”s "higher" or "special" doctrine.

　　This third great pision of the Pali canon bears a distinctly different character from the other two pisions. Whereas the Suttas and Vinaya serve an obvious practical purpose, namely, to proclaim a clear-cut message of deliverance and to lay down a method of personal training, the Abhidhamma Pitaka presents the appearance of an abstract and highly technical systemization of the doctrine. The collection consists of seven books: the Dhammasangani, the Vibhanga, the Dhatukatha, the Puggalapaññatti, the Kathavatthu, the Yamaka, and the Patthana. Unlike the Suttas, these are not records of discourses and discussions occurring in real-life settings; they are, rather, full-blown treatises in which the principles of the doctrine have been methodically organized, minutely defined, and meticulously tabulated and classified. Though they were no doubt originally composed and transmitted orally and only written down later, with the rest of the canon in the first century B.C., they exhibit the qualities of structured thought and rigorous consistency more typical of written documents.

　　In the Theravada tradition …

《A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…