Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 38 No. 1, 2018.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21464/fi38116
Content, Methodology and Intention of Presentation of the Buddha’s Teaching in Terms of Canonical Abhidharma
Goran Kardaš
orcid.org/0000-0003-1695-1559
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Filozofski fakultet, Ivana Lučića 3, HR–10000 Zagreb
Abstract
The paper explores the type of discourse of the socalled canonical Abhidharma as the earliest systematic presentation of Buddha’s teaching. Certain located canonical sūtras (Buddha’s discourses) might served as a doctrinal starting point for constructing the system of Abhidharma as well as its methodology of presentation that could be rooted in Buddha’s differentiation between direct (nītattha) and indirect (neyyattha) types of discourse. In continuation of the article, we proceed to analyze content and method of presentation of the canonical Abhidharma within the Theravāda Buddhist school as it was carried out in two of their classical works: Dhammasaṃgani and Abhidhammatthasangaha. In these works, an analysis of reality as primary psychophysical data (dharmas) is carried out consistently. It is furthermore shown that such an analysis of reality avoids an ontological question about the existential status of dharmas that, on the contrary, should be understood as the phenomenological description of elementary psychophysical functions that shape experience or ‘types’ of consciousness (citta). The article concludes with the elaboration of possible reasons (intentions) for constructing the system of canonical Abhidharma.
Keywords
abhidharma; Buddha; dharma; phenomenology of experience; theravāda; types of consciousness
Hrčak ID:
204800
URI
Publication date:
2.4.2018.
Visits: 1.862 *