What is "abhidharma"

Abhidharma ( Sanskrit) or Abhidhamma ( Pali) are ancient (3rd century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras, according to schematic classifications. The Abhidhamma works do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or abstract and systematic lists.

According to Collett Cox, Abhidhamma started as an elaboration of the teachings of the suttas, but later developed independent doctrines.

The literal translation of the term Abhidharma is unclear. Two possibilities are most commonly given:

1. abhi - higher, special or exceeding + dharma- teaching, philosophy, thus making Abhidharma the "higher teachings"
2. abhi - about + dharma of the teaching, translating it instead as "about the teaching" or even "meta-teaching".

Compared to the colloquial sutras, Abhidharma texts are much more technical, analytic and systematic in content and style. The Theravadin and Sarvastivadin Abhidharmikas generally considered the Abhidharma to be the pure and literal (nippariyaya) description of ultimate truth (paramattha sacca) and an expression of unsullied wisdom ( prajna), while the sutras were considered 'conventional' (sammuti) and figurative (pariyaya) teachings, given by the Buddha to specific people, at specific times, depending on specific worldly circumstances. They held that Abhidharma was taught by the Buddha to his most eminent disciples, and that therefore this justified the inclusion of Abhidharma texts into their scriptural canon.

Some in the West have considered the Abhidhamma to be the core of what is referred to as " Buddhist Psychology". Other writers on the topic such as Nyanaponika Thera and Dan Lusthaus describe Abhidhamma as a Buddhist Phenomenology while Noa Ronkin and Kenneth Inada equate it with Process philosophy. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes that the system of the Abhidhamma Pitaka is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation." Abhidharma analysis also extended into the fields of ontology, epistemology and metaphysics.

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."