Nguồn gốc của Abhidhamma
1) David Snyder, “Dhamma Wiki”
http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Abhidhamma_origins
ABHIDHAMMA AS BUDDHAVACANA?
Theravada Buddhists accept that the Abhidhamma is a valuable and beneficial resource. But there is some debate as to whether it is Buddhavacana (the exact words of the Buddha) or not. Classical Theravada Buddhists see it as the word of Buddha described by the tradition of the Buddha ascending to the heavens to teach the devas and then Sariputta to the monks. Many Modern Theravada Buddhists also accept this account, whereas some are skeptical if it is exactly or completely Buddhavacana. Some feel that it represents great teachings, but authored by later disciples as more of a commentary, than the words of the Buddha as found in the Suttas and Vinaya.
* Arguments that it may not be Buddhavacana include:
1. The Abhidhamma was not recited at the First Buddhist council.
2. The Abhidhamma was not recited at the Second Buddhist council and it was not until the Third Buddhist council before it was made official.
3. The story of the Buddha ascending to heaven to teach Abhidhamma is not in the Suttas.
4. The story of the Buddha ascending to heaven to teach Abhidhamma is not even in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, but rather in later commentaries.
5. It is not mentioned as one of the nine branches of the teachings (navanga, AN, II.103).
6. It contains information and a style not found in the Suttas and Vinaya.
Of the above arguments, number 6 is probably the weakest, because if it did not contain new information, what would be the use of it? If it just repeated what is already in the Suttas, we would have the three baskets of Suttas, Vinaya, and re-printing of the Suttas. So it is natural to expect the information to be different.
* Arguments that it may be Buddhavacana include:
1. The term Abhidhamma is mentioned in the Suttas at various places.
2. It has the stamp of single mind.
3. Who but the Buddha could have fathomed the Abhidhamma.
4. There would have had to be a lengthy plot involving hundreds of monks actively lying and claiming that it was the Buddha Dhamma when it wasn't - and that is heavy kamma. I don't get that feeling about the ancient monks and nuns of Theravada. It is of course immaterial who taught it if we can apply it and see its truths.
5. The commentaries show that the Abhidhamma was recited at the First Council and confirm the story of Buddha ascending to heaven to teach the Abhidhamma.
Of the above arguments, from a scholarly and historical position, number 5 is probably weakest because it is utilizing data hundreds of years after the fact to confirm events which are not recorded from those events.
Relying on the commentaries could be somewhat dubious. Bhikkhu Dhammanando has reported that, "the Atthakathā starts its explanation with the word kira, meaning something like "so it is said that,", "it is reported that...", or "rumour has it that..." The use of kira indicates that the commentator is non-committal about the factualness of what he is reporting; if you like, it's commentarial code for "take it with a pinch of salt" or "we don't insist that this is necessarily correct."
When discussing the use of the term Abhidhamma in the Suttas, Theravada translator, Bhikkhu Bodhi, has stated:
"Though the word cannot refer here to the Pitaka of that name obviously the product of a phase of Buddhist thought later than the Nikayas - it may well indicate a systematic and analytical approach to the doctrine that served as the original nucleus of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. In a careful study of the contexts in which the word 'Abhidhamma' occurs in the Sutta Pitakas of several early recensions, the Japanese Pali scholor Fumimaro Watanabe concludes that the Buddha's own disciples formed the conception of Abhidhamma as an elementary philosophical study that attempted to define, analyse, and classify dhammas and to explore their mutual relations." -- MN trans. pg. 1225
In spite of the many arguments for and against the Abhidhamma as Buddhavacana or not, we can use Theravada Saddha (Faith) and personally study and test the principles and see if they are beneficial and match and are compatible with the Dhamma.
2) Collett Cox, Abhidharma, in “Encyclopedia of Buddhism” (2004)
In the centuries after the death of the Buddha, with the advent of settled monastic communities, there emerged new forms of religious praxis and modes of transmitting and interpreting the teaching. In this more organized setting, Buddhist practitioners began to reexamine received traditions and to develop new methods of organization that would make explicit their underlying significance and facilitate their faithful transmission. Although begun as a pragmatic method of elaborating the received teachings, this scholastic enterprise soon led to new doctrinal and textual developments and became the focus of a new form of scholarly monastic life. The products of this scholarship became revered tradition in their own right, eventually eclipsing the dialogues of the Buddha and of his disciples as the arbiter of the true teaching and determining both the exegetical method and the salient issues that became the focus of later Indian Buddhist doctrinal investigations.
This scholastic enterprise was called abhidharma (Pali: abhidhamma), a multivalent term used to refer to the new techniques of doctrinal interpretation, to the body of texts that this interpretation yielded, and finally to the crucial discriminating insight that was honed through doctrinal interpretation and employed in religious praxis.
3) Edward Conze, “Buddhism: A Short History” (1980)
As the result of the emergence of an interest in philosophical questions we have the first instance of a whole class of canonical literature being created to meet a new situation. The Abhidharma books were clearly composed after the third division of the schools. The contents of the seven Abhidharma books of the Sarvástivádins differ greatly from those of the seven books of the Theravádins, who are an offshoot of the Vibhajyavádins. Some sects, like the Sautrántikas, went so far as to contest the authenticity of all Abhidharma works. A great mental effort went, from about 200 BC onwards, into the production of these books, which are technical handbooks of meditation, teaching what events can be regarded as elementary, how others are composed of them, how they condition each other, etc.
4) Erich Frauwallner, “Studies in Abhidharma Literature and the Origins of Buddhist Philosophical Systems” (1995)
The oldest Buddhist tradition has no Abhidharma-pitaka but only mātrikā. What this means is that besides the small number of fundamental doctrinal statements, the Buddha's sermons also contain a quantity of doctrinal concepts. The most suitable form for collecting and preserving these concepts would have been comprehensive lists. Lists of this kind were called mātrikā, and it was from these lists that the Abhidharma later developed.
5) Rupert Gethin, “The Foundations of Buddhism” (1998)
We have substantial knowledge of the Abhidharma literature and systems of only two ancient Buddhist schools: the Sarvastivadins and the Theravadins. The only obvious similarity between their respective Abhidharma Pitaka collections, however, is that they both contain just seven works. Despite the great status and authority attributed to the Abhidharma and the claim that it is 'the word of the Buddha', both these schools explicitly acknowledge the work of the Buddha's chief disciples in arranging and transmitting the Abhidharma. From this point of view, the Abhidharma has for the tradition the status of a sutra or set of headings expanded by one of the Buddha's disciples and then subsequently endorsed by the Buddha. Even so, some ancient Buddhists, such as the Sautrantikas or 'those who follow the Sutra', came to resist the notion that the Abhidharma had the full status of 'the word of the Buddha'. Yet while such a group may have wished to deny the Abhidharma the status of the Buddha's word, it is clear that they did not seek to question the method and principles of Abhidharma in their entirety; what they were concerned to question were particular interpretations and understandings current amongst, certain exponents of Abhidharma.
6) Peter Harvey, “An Introduction to Buddhism” (2013)
In the third century BCE, a few schools added works of Abhidhamma (Skt Abhidharma) to their canons of teachings, developing them from Mātikās (Skt Mātrikā), or tabulated summaries of topics, which may have originated with the Buddha. The Abhidhammas of the different schools differed appreciably in details, but all aimed to present the teachings of the Suttas systematically, along with interpretations which drew out their implications. Other schools in time expressed their views in extra-canonical treatises. The Abhidhamma literature sought to avoid the inexactitudes of colloquial conventional language, as is sometimes found in the Suttas, and state everything in psycho-philosophically exact language, on ‘ultimate realities’ (paramattha-sacca, Skt paramartha-satya). In doing this, it analysed reality into a sequence of micro-moments, so that it could also analyse what happens in any of these.
7) Hirakawa Akira, “A History of Indian Buddhism” (1990)
After the Sutra-pitaka had been established and its contents determined, abhidharma investigations were considered to be a separate branch of literature. Abhidharma studies were later compiled into a collection called the Abhidharma-pitaka, which was combined with the Suitra-pitaka and Vinaya-pitaka to make up the "Three Baskets" or Tripitaka (P. Tipitaka) of the early Buddhist canon. The canon was limited to these three baskets or collections. In the Theravada School, the term "Pali" (or Pali) is used with the meaning of "scripture" to refer to the Tripitaka, but not to refer to the commentaries on the Tripitaka.
The Sarvastivadin School argued that the abhidharma was preached by the Buddha. Sarvastivadins thus believed that the entire Tripitaka was, in a broad sense, the Buddha's preaching. However, the similarities in the texts of the Sutra-pitakas and Vinaya-pitakas followed by the various schools reveal that the basic contents of these two collections were determined before the divisions of Nikaya Buddhism had occurred. In contrast, the contents of abhidharma literature varies with each of the schools, indicating that this class of literature was compiled after the basic divisions of the schools had occurred. The Abhidharma-pitakas of most of the schools were probably compiled during a period beginning in 250 B.C.E. (after the first major schism) and ending around the start of the common era.
8) Y. Karunadasa, “Theravada Abhidhamma” (2010)
With the spread of Buddhism across northern India, the ancient unified monastic com m unity was divided into different schools, probably in the earliest phase simply on account of geographical separation and slightly different approaches to interpretation. But over time, it is likely that they each developed their own distinctive way of systematizing the dhammas recognized as the constituents of experience. Thus by the third or fourth century after the Buddha’s demise a variety of Abhidharma systems must have adorned the Buddhist landscape in northern India.
9) Bhikkhu Bodhi, “In the Buddha’s Words” (2005)
The Abhidhamma Pitaka is obviously the product of a later phase in the evolution of Buddhist thought than the other two Pitakas. The Pali version represents the Theravada school’s attempt to systematize the older teachings. Other early schools apparently had their own Abhidhamma systems. The Sarvastivada system is the only one whose canonical texts have survived intact in their entirety. Its canonical collection, like the Pali version, also consists of seven texts. These were originally composed in Sanskrit but are preserved in full only in Chinese translation. The system they define differs significantly from that of its Theravada counterpart in both formulation and philosophy.
10) New World Encyclopedia
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Abhidharma
Many scholars generally believe that the Abhidharma emerged after the time of the Buddha, as the growth of monastic centers and support for the Buddhist sangha provided the resources and expertise necessary to systematically analyze the early teachings. However, some scholars believe that the Abhidharma represents an expansion of a set of teachings and categorizations that were employed during the earliest period of Buddhism and were then later developed and elaborated upon.
11) Bhikkhu Karmananda Tanchangya, “Controversies on the Origin of the Theravada Abhidhamma-pitaka” (2007)
According to the Mahavamsa’s and some other authentic texts like Cullavaggapali’s accounts, it’s much justifiable to assume that the recitation or perhaps the formation of the Abhidhamma-pitaka probably took place after the first Buddhist council.
Bhikkhu KL Dhammajoti, referring to the Abhidhamma-pitaka as the last of the Tipitaka, says, without coming to a specific conclusion regarding the origin of Abhidhamma, ‘this very probably reflects the historical fact that the Abhidharma texts were evolved and compiled as a pitaka later than the other two’. (…) Frauwallner is one of the few scholars who say that the ‘Abhidhamma-pitaka originated between 2nd century BC and 2nd century AD’. (…)
Thus the modern scholarship is yet to arrive at a unanimous conclusion on the origin of the Abhidhamma-pitaka. What the modern scholars like Hinuber could suggest is that ‘the Abhidhamma-pitaka is considerably younger than both Sutta- and Vinaya-pitakas’. Hence, the modern scholarship concludes that Abhidhamma was a gradual development, interpretation, further elaboration, organization and systematization of the teachings found in the Sutta-pitaka. Terms like ‘abhidhamme’ often alongside ‘abhivinaye’ occur in the Sutta- and Vinaya-pitakas, but this particular term does not necessarily mean the form of standardized Abdhidhamma we have today.
12) Bhikkhu Polgolle Kusaladhamma, “A critical discussion of Buddhaghosa’s Account of the Origin of the Theravada Abhidhamma”
http://polgollekusaladhamma.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/a-critical-discussion-of-buddhaghosas.html
Sarvastivadin and Theravadin both have complete abhidhamma texts. Other Buddhist schools do not have complete abhidhamma texts. Sarvastiada Abhidhamma texts were written in Sanskrit language. Later as a result of foreign invention Sanskrit scriptures destroyed. Before destruction of the Sarastivada Tripitaka, a Chinese translation of all texts has been brought to China. Thravadin have complete Abhidhamma texts in original. They used Pali language to write their texts. Both tradition have seven books as Abhidhamma texts. The important thing is those seven texts are different in the two schools. Sutta and vinaya texts are similar in their core parts. Although in Abhidhamma content is different to each other.
According to texts we can see origination of Abhidhamma happened due to the explanation and classification of deep dhamma concepts which were in the Suttas. gradually those interpretation developed and have collected immense classification which can not put with the dhamma as one pitaka. Then it was consider as separate pitaka. Until 3rd century BC developed and with the Kathavattuppakarana which was written by Moggaliputta Tissa Abhidhamma was completed. In Sri Lanka until 13th century AD Abhidhamma texts developed. Today in some countries such Burma still develops Ahidhamma texts.
13) Kenneth R. Norman, “Pali Literatures” (1983)
It is clear that the Abhidhamma is later than the rest of the canon. There is no mention in the chronicles of reciting the Abhidhamma at the first or second councils, although the Mahavamsa states that the arahants who held the second council knew the tipitaka. The Mahasafighikas who split from the Theravadins after the second council are said to have rejected the Abhidhamma. This presumably means that there was nothing corresponding exactly to the Pali Abhidhamma in their canon, from which it may be deduced that the Abhidhamma did not exist at that time, or at least was not recognised as canonical.
14) Karl H. Potter, “Abhidharma Buddhism to 150 AD” (1996)
(…) The Abhidharma books were the first major extension of the scope of Buddhist literature to take place in India, and the approach to legitimation taken by the Abhidharmikas adumbrates that adopted later by the Mahayana school. Three major concerns were apparent in their attempts to establish the authenticity of their new books: first, to prove that the Buddha himself had personally taught the Abhidharma; second, that it had been formally transmitted to eminent disciples of the Buddha, by whom it was then collected; and third, that the Abhidharma works had in fact been recited and codified at the time of the putative first council. In this wise, the Theravadins and Sarvastivadins attempted to justify the inclusion of their Abhidharmas as part of the canon.(…)
(…) In spite of this attempt on the part of the commentators to make the Buddha the sole author of the Abhidhammapitaka, the commentators agree to a large extent that the individual Abhidhamma books were propounded by the Elders. The major challenge to this extension of the words of the Buddha to include the Abhidhamma focussed on the Kathavatthu, which even the commentators admitted was compiled at the third council by Tissa-Moggaliputta, long after the Buddha's passing. (…)
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Đọc thêm:
- A-tỳ-đàm (Abhidhamma, Abhidharma, Vi diệu pháp, Thắng pháp, Vô tỷ pháp, ...)
Nguyên tác: Collett Cox, dịch Việt: Pháp Hiền cư sĩ
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| “The Buddha’s Descent from Tavatimsa Heaven,” from Burma |
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