Bhikkhu Anālayo the Dawn of Abhidharma

Bhikkhu Anālayo The Dawn of Abhidharma Hamburg University Press 2014 Anālayo The Dawn of Abhidharma Hamburg Buddhist Studies 2 Series editor: Michael Zimmermann Anālayo The Dawn of Abhidharma Hamburg University Press Publishing house of the Hamburg State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky Imprint Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library). The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. The online version is available online for free on the website of Hamburg University Press (open access). The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek stores this online publication on its Archive Server. The Archive Server is part of the deposit system for long-term availability of digital publications. Available open access in the Internet at: Hamburg University Press – http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de PURL: http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/purl/HamburgUP_HBS02_Analayo URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-3-1450 Archive Server of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek – http://dnb.d-nb.de ISBN 978-3-943423-15-0 (printed version) ISSN 2190-6769 (printed version) © 2014 Hamburg University Press, Publishing house of the Hamburg State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky, Germany Printing house: Elbe-Werkstätten GmbH, Hamburg, Germany http://www.elbe-werkstaetten.de/ Cover design: Julia Wrage, Hamburg Figure: Gandhāra, courtesy Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin. Museum für Asiatische Kunst, Kunstsammlung Süd-, Südost- und Zentralasien, SMB / I 65 (picture: Georg Niedermeiser). Contents List of Figures 7 Foreword 9 Michael Zimmermann Introduction 11 1 Reciting the Dharma and the Functions of Lists 15 1.1 The First Saṅgīti at Rājagṛha 15 1.2 Mātṛkā and Abhidharma 21 1.3 Summaries of the Dharma 29 1.4 The Seven Sets 49 2 Wisdom and Early Canonical Abhidharma 55 2.1 Wisdom and the Elements 55 2.2 The Term Abhidharma 69 2.3 Canonical Commentary 79 2.4 Early Canonical Abhidharma 86 3 Meditative Analysis and Omniscience 91 3.1 The Analysis of the Four Noble Truths 91 3.2 The Analysis of Absorption 100 3.3 The Buddha’s Awakening 110 3.4 The Buddha and Omniscience 117 4 Awakening and the Authentication of the Abhidharma 129 4.1 The Supramundane Path 129 4.2 The Path to Awakening 142 4.3 The Need for Authentication 148 4.4 The Buddha in the Heaven of the Thirty-three 156 Conclusion 167 Abbreviations 173 References 175 Index 219 List of Figures Figure 1.1: Siddhārtha Learns Writing 25 Figure 1.2: Saṅgīti-sūtra Fragment 30 Figure 1.3: The Buddha’s Passing Away 48 Figure 2.1: The Twin Miracle 57 Figure 2.2: Mahāprajāpatī Requests Ordination 75 Figure 2.3: Punishment in Hell 85 Figure 3.1: The Stūpa of Śāriputra 108 Figure 3.2: Turning the Wheel of Dharma 115 Figure 3.3: Jain Tīrthaṅkara 124 Figure 4.1: Sujātā’s Offering 145 Figure 4.2: The Buddha’s Descent from Heaven 159 Figure 4.3: The Transmission of the Abhidhamma to Sāriputta 162 Foreword About Hamburg Buddhist Studies Buddhism has enjoyed a prominent place in the study of Asian religious ideas at the University of Hamburg for almost 100 years, ever since the birth of Buddhist Studies in Germany. We are proud that our pro- gramme is housed in one of the pioneering academic institutions in Europe at which the study of Buddhism has become a core subject for students focusing on the religious dimensions of South and Central Asia. With this publication series, the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg aims to honour this long-standing com- mitment to research and share the results of this tradition with the academic community and the wider public. Today, Buddhist Studies as an academic discipline makes use of a broad variety of approaches and methods. The field covers contemporary issues as much as it delves into the historic aspects of Buddhism. Similarly, the questions shaping the field of Buddhist Studies have broadened. Understanding present-day Buddhist phenomena, and how such phenomena are rooted in a distant past, is not a matter of indulgence. Rather, it has become clear that fostering such an understanding is one of the many crucial obligations of modern multicultural societies in a globalized world. Buddhism is one of the great human traditions of religious and phil- osophical thought. The Hamburg Buddhist Studies series aims to discuss aspects of the wide variety of Buddhist traditions that will be of interest to scholars and specialists of Buddhism, but it also wants to confront Buddhism’s rich heritage with questions whose answers might not be easily deduced by the exclusive use of philological research methods. Such questions require the penetrating insight of scholars who approach Buddhism from a variety of disciplines building upon and yet going beyond the solid study of textual materials. We are convinced that the Hamburg Buddhist Studies series will contribute to opening up Buddhist 10 The Dawn of Abhidharma Studies to those who are not necessarily trained in the classical languages of the Buddhist traditions but want to approach the field with their own disciplinary interests in mind. We very much hope that this series will encourage a wider audience to take interest in the academic study of the Buddhist traditions. About this Publication It is my great pleasure to introduce the second volume in the Hamburg Buddhist Studies series, a study by Bhikkhu Anālayo, professor at the Asien-Afrika-Institut of the University of Hamburg. This book is a companion to his previous study of the Genesis of the Bodhisattva Ideal, published in the same series. In the present book he turns to another im- portant aspect in the development of Buddhist thought: the beginnings of the Abhidharma. Anālayo shows that the two main modes generally held in academic circles to explain the arising of the Abhidharma – the use of lists (mātṛkā) and the question-and-answer format – are formal elements that in them- selves are not characteristic of Abhidharma thought. Going beyond the notion that the coming into being of the Abhidharma can be located in such formal aspects, he shows how the attempt to provide a comprehensive map of the teachings gradually led to the arising of new terminol- ogy and new ideas. He identifies the notion of the supramundane path as an instance where fully fledged Abhidharma thought manifests in the discourses, namely in the Mahācattārīsaka-sutta of the Theravāda tradition, as well as in otherwise unrelated discourses from the Dharmagup- taka and Mūlasarvāstivāda traditions, extant in Chinese translation. Anālayo concludes that what characterizes the Abhidharma is not the mere use of dry lists and summaries, but rather a mode of thought that has gone further (abhi-) than the Dharma taught in the early discourses in general. Such progression emerges out of an attempt to examine meticulously all the constituents of a particular transitory event. Michael Zimmermann Introduction The purpose of wisdom is disenchantment, dispassion, and seeing as it really is.1 Theme This book is a companion to my study of The Genesis of the Bodhisattva Ideal, in which I explored what the early discourses have to offer re- garding the beginnings of the bodhisattva ideal. In The Dawn of Abhi- dharma, I similarly explore another development of comparable significance for Buddhist thought: the emergence of the Abhidharma. In the last chapter and the conclusions to the present study, I attempt to relate these two trajectories that have been of such central influence in the development of Buddhism. My approach is based on studying selected early discourses, without any pretence at offering a comprehensive coverage of all relevant mate- rial. The beginnings of the Abhidharma have of course already been 2 studied by a number of scholars, hence there will be little that is spec- tacular in the following pages. Yet I hope that what emerges through approaching this topic from the viewpoint of the early discourses will sustain the reader’s interest. My exploration is divided into four chapters. In the first chapter I begin with the notion of communal recitation of the Dharma, saṅgīti, in particular taking up the Saṅgīti-sūtra as a discourse that exemplifies the creation of summary listings, mātṛkā. With the second chapter I turn to the cultivation of wisdom through knowledge of the elements as ex- ―――――― 1 MĀ 211 at T I 790c22. 2 My ignorance of Japanese has prevented me from benefiting from research published in that language. 12 The Dawn of Abhidharma pounded in the Bahudhātuka-sūtra, and then examine the commentarial nature of early Abhidharma works and the significance of the term abhidharma itself. The theme of the third chapter is meditative analysis, in particular the analysis of absorption attainment and of the four noble truths, based on a study of relevant sections from the Anupada-sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna-sutta. In the same chapter I also turn to the rela- tionship of the four noble truths to the Buddha’s awakening and to the notion that the Buddha had attained omniscience. The path to awakening is then the topic of the fourth chapter, based on a study of the supramundane path described in the Mahācattārīsaka-sutta. I continue with the need in the Abhidharma and Mahāyāna traditions for authentication as being the word of the Buddha, and the narrative employed in the Theravāda tradition for this purpose, according to which the Buddha taught the Abhidharma to his mother during a sojourn in the Heaven of the Thirty-three. By covering topics such as the Buddha’s omniscience and his sup- posed teaching of the Abhidharma in heaven, I intend to bring out that the beginnings of the Abhidharma would not be the product of dry scholasticism alone.

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