..續本文上一頁 order to fill out, by way of explanation and exemplification, the scaffoldings erected by the canonical texts. The most important works of this class are the authorized commentaries of Acariya Buddhaghosa. These are three in number: the Atthasalini, "The Expositor," the commentary to the Dhammasangani; the Sammohavinodani, "The Dispeller of Delusion," the commentary to the Vibhanga; and the Pañcappakarana Atthakatha, the combined commentary to the other five treatises. To this same stratum of literature also belongs the Visuddhimagga, "The Path of Purification," also composed by Buddhaghosa. Although this last work is primarily an encyclopedic guide to meditation, its chapters on "the soil of understanding" (XIV-XVII) lay out the theory to be mastered prior to developing insight and thus constitute in effect a compact dissertation on Abhidhamma. Each of the commentaries in turn has its subcommentary (mulatika), by an elder of Sri Lanka named Acariya Ananda, and these in turn each have a sub-subcommentary (anutika), by Ananda”s pupil Dhammapala (who is to be distinguished from the great Acariya Dhammapala, author of the tikas to Buddhaghosa”s works).

　　When the authorship of the Commentaries is ascribed to Acariya Buddhaghosa, it should not be supposed that they are in any way original compositions, or even original attempts to interpret traditional material. They are, rather, carefully edited versions of the vast body of accumulated exegetical material that Buddhaghosa found at the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura. This material must have preceded the great commentator by centuries, representing the collective efforts of generations of erudite Buddhist teachers to elucidate the meaning of the canonical Abhidhamma. While it is tempting to try to discern evidence of historical development in the Commentaries over and beyond the ideas embedded in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, it is risky to push this line too far, for a great deal of the canonical Abhidhamma seems to require the Commentaries to contribute the unifying context in which the inpidual elements hang together as parts of a systematic whole and without which they lose important dimensions of meaning. It is thus not unreasonable to assume that a substantial portion of the commentarial apparatus originated in close proximity to the canonical Abhidhamma and was transmitted concurrently with the latter, though lacking the stamp of finality it was open to modification and amplification in a way that the canonical texts were not.

　　Bearing this in mind, we might briefly note a few of the Abhidhammic conceptions that are characteristic of the Commentaries but either unknown or recessive in the Abhidhamma Pitaka itself. One is the detailed account of the cognitive process (cittavithi). While this conception seems to be tacitly recognized in the canonical books, it now comes to be drawn out for use as an explanatory tool in its own right. The functions of the cittas, the different types of consciousness, are specified, and in time the cittas themselves come to be designated by way of their functions. The term khana, "moment," replaces the canonical samaya, "occasion," as the basic unit for delimiting the occurrence of events, and the duration of a material phenomenon is determined to be seventeen moments of mental phenomena. The pision of a moment into three sub-moments — arising, presence, and dissolution — also seems to be new to the Commentaries.[10] The organization of material phenomena into groups (kalapa), though implied by the distinction between the primary elements of matter and derived matter, is first spelled out in the Commentaries, as is the specification of the heart-base (hadayavatthu) as the material basis for mind element and mind-consciousness element.

　　The Commentaries …

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