The paper “The Dhamma Theory: Philosophical Cornerstone of the ABHIDHAMMA” by Prof. Dr. Y. Karunadasa hits the nail on the coffin with academic rigour and technical understanding of the dhammas. Divided into 3 parts, the paper secularises the multidimensional comprehension of dhamma ‘theory’; part-1 deals with major stages in the organic growth of dhamma theory, part-2 hints at the development of commentarial approaches that beget early Abhidhamma thought and part-3 focuses on few vital topics that honoured philosophical examination as a result of the dhamma theory.
This paper disguised as an assignment will intend to do an untechnical anatomy of Abhidhamma or dhamma theory, with conditional observation of part-1.
To prolude, this paper endeavours to trace the premise that “all phenomena of experience can be explained on the basis of elementary constituents called the ‘dhammas’)”.
Crux
The Dhamma theory can be collaborated with Bhikkhu Bodhi’s premise that “it is an abstract and highly technical systemization of the [Buddhist] doctrine,” which is “simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation.” [1] According to Peter Harvey, the Abhidhamma method seeks “to avoid the inexactitudes of colloquial conventional language, as is sometimes found in the Suttas, and state everything in psycho-philosophically exact language.” In this sense, it is an attempt to best express the Buddhist view of “ultimate reality”. [2]
The following ingredient is from the original paper that extends to ratiocinate the characteristics of dhamma theory:
Although the dhamma theory is an Abhidhammic innovation, the antecedent trends that led to its formulation and its basic ingredients can be traced to the early Buddhist scriptures which seek to analyse empiric individuality and its relation to the external world. In the discourses of the Buddha there are five such modes of analysis.
The first, the analysis into nama and rupa, is the most elementary in the sense that it specifies the two main components, the mental and the corporeal aspects, of the empiric individual.
The second is that into the five khandhas (aggregates): corporeality (rupa), sensation (vedana), perception (sanna), mental formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vinnana).
The third is divided into six dhatus (elements): earth (pathavi), water (apo), temperature (tejo), air (vayo), space (akasa), and consciousness (vinnana).
The fourth is that into twelve ayatanas (avenues of sense-perception and mental cognition): the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind; and their corresponding objects: visible form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects.
The fifth is that into eighteen dhatus (elements), an elaboration of the immediately preceding mode obtained by the addition of the six kinds of consciousness which arise from the contact between the sense organs and their objects. The six additional items are the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousnesses. Now the purposes for which Buddhism resorts to these analyses are varied. For instance, the main purpose of the khandha-analysis is to show that there is no ego either inside or outside the five khandhas which go to make up the so-called empiric individuality. None of the khandhas belong to me (n’etat mama), they do not correspond to “I” (n’eso’ham asmi), nor are they my self (n’eso me atta).
Thus the main purpose of this analysis is to prevent the intrusion of the notions of “mine,” “I,” and “my self” into what is otherwise an impersonal and egoless congeries of mental and physical phenomena. On the other hand, the analysis into eighteen dhatus is often resorted to in order to show that consciousness is neither a soul nor an extension of a soul-substance but a mental phenomenon which comes into being as a result of certain conditions: there is no independent consciousness which exists in its own right. In similar fashion each analysis is used to explain certain features of sentient existence. It is, in fact, with reference to these five kinds of analysis that Buddhism frames its fundamental doctrines. The very fact that there are at least five kinds of analysis shows that none of them can be taken as final or absolute. Each represents the world of experience in its totality, yet represents it from a pragmatic standpoint determined by the particular doctrine which it is intended to illuminate.
The Abhidhammic doctrine of dhammas developed from an attempt to draw out the full implications of these five types of analysis. It will be seen that if each analysis is examined in relation to the other four, it is found to be further analysable. That the first, the analysis into nama and rupa, is further analysable is seen by the second, the analysis into the five khandhas. For in the second, the nama-component of the first is analysed into sensation, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. That the analysis into khandhas, too, can be further analysed is shown not only by the use of the term khandha, which means “group,” but also by the next analysis, that into six dhatus. For in the latter, the rupa-component of the former is analysed into four, namely, earth water, temperature, and air.
That the analysis into six dhatus is also further analysable is seen from the fact that consciousness, which is reckoned here as one item, is made into four in the khandha-analysis. That the same situation is true of the analysis into twelve ayatanas is shown by the next analysis, that into eighteen dhatus, because the latter is an elaboration of the former. This leaves us with the last, the dhatu-analysis with eighteen items. Can this be considered final? This supposition too must be rejected, because although consciousness is here itemized as sixfold, its invariable concomitants such as sensation (vedana) and perception (sanna) are not separately mentioned.
It will thus be seen that none of the five analyses can be considered exhaustive. In each case one or more items is further analysable. This, it seems to me, is the line of thought that led the Abhidhammikas to evolve yet another mode of analysis which in their view is not amenable to further analysis. This new development, which is more or less common to all the systems of Abhidhamma, is the analysis of the world of experience into what came to be known as dharmas (Skt) or dhammas (Pali).
The term dhamma, of course, looms large in the discourses of the Buddha, found in a variety of senses which have to be determined by the specific context. In the Abhidhamma, however, the term assumes a more technical meaning, referring to those items that result when the process of analysis is taken to its ultimate limits. In the Theravada Abhidhamma, for instance, the aggregate of corporeality (of the khandha-analysis) is broken down into twenty-eight items called rupa-dhammas. The next three aggregates — sensation, perception, and mental formations — are together arranged into fifty-two items called cetasikas. The fifth, consciousness, is counted as one item with eighty-nine varieties and is referred to as citta. Thus the dhamma-analysis is an addition to the previous five modes of analyses. Its scope is the same, the world of conscious experience, but its divisions are finer and more exhaustive. This situation in itself does not constitute a radical departure from the earlier tradition, for it does not as yet involve a view of existence that is at variance with that of early Buddhism.
There is, however, this situation to be noted: Since the analysis into dhammas is the most exhaustive, the previous five modes of analysis become subsumed under it as five subordinate classifications. The definition and classification of these dhammas and the explanation of their inter-connections form the main subject matter of the canonical Abhidhamma. The Abhidhammikas presuppose that to understand any given item properly is to know it in all its relations, under all aspects recognized in the doctrinal and practical discipline of Buddhism. Therefore, in the Abhidhamma Pitaka, they have classified the same material in different ways and from different points of view. This explains why, in the Dhammasangani and other Abhidhamma treatises, one encounters innumerable lists of classifications. Although such lists may appear repetitive, even monotonous, they serve a useful purpose, bringing into relief, not only the individual characteristic of each dhamma, but also its relations to other dhammas. [3]
Conclusive Analysis
Compared to the colloquial sutras, Abhidharma texts are much more technical, analytic and systematic in content and style. The Theravādin and Sarvastivadin Abhidharmikas generally considered the Abhidharma to be the pure and literal (nippariyaya) description of ultimate truth (paramattha sacca) and an expression of perfect spiritual wisdom, 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. [4]
The conventional reality of substantial objects and persons is merely a conceptual construct imputed by the mind on a flux of dhammas. [5] However, dhammas are never seen as individually separate entities, but are always dependently conditioned by other dhammas in a stream of momentary constellations of dhammas, constantly coming into being and vanishing, always in flux. Perception and thinking are then seen as a combination of various dhammas. Cittas (awareness events) are never experienced on their own, but are always intentional and hence accompanied by various mental factors (cetasikas), in a constantly flowing stream of experience occurrences. [6] Human experience is thus explained by a series of dynamic processes and their patterns of relationships with each other. Buddhist Abhidhamma philosophers then sought to explain all experience by creating lists and matrices (matikas) of these dhammas, which varied by school. The four categories of dhammas in the Theravada Abhidhamma are: [7]
- Citta (Mind, Consciousness, awareness)
- Cetasika (mental factors, mental events, associated mentality), there are 52 types
- Rūpa — (physical occurrences, material form), 28 types
- Nibbāna — (Extinction, cessation). This dhamma is unconditioned [8]; it neither arises nor ceases due to causal interaction.
The Sarvastivada Abhidharma also used these, along with a fifth category: “factors dissociated from thought” (cittaviprayuktasaṃskāra). The Sarvastivadas also included three dharmas in the fourth “unconditioned” category instead of just one, the dharma of space and two states of cessation.
The Abhidharma project was thus to provide a completely exhaustive account of every possible type of conscious experience in terms of its constituent factors and their relations. The Theravada tradition holds that there were 82 types of possible dhammas — 82 types of occurrences in the experiential world, while the general Sarvastivada tradition eventually enumerated 75 dharma types. [9]
For the Abhidharmikas, truth was twofold and there are two ways of looking at reality. One way is the way of everyday experience and of normal worldly persons. This is the category of the nominal and the conceptual (paññatti), and is termed the conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya). However, the way of the Abhidharma, and hence the way of enlightened persons like the Buddha, who have developed the true insight (vipassana), sees reality as the constant stream of collections of dharmas, and this way of seeing the world is ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). As the Indian Buddhist Vasubandhu writes: “Anything the idea of which does not occur upon division or upon mental analysis, such as an object like a pot, that is a ‘conceptual fiction’. The ultimately real is otherwise.” [10] For Vasubandhu then, something is not ultimately real if it ‘disappears under analysis’, but is merely conventional.
The ultimate goal of the Abhidharma is Nirvana and hence the Abhidharmikas systematized dhammas into those which are skillful (kusala), purify the mind and lead to liberation, and those which are unskillful and do not. The Abhidharma then has a soteriological purpose, first and foremost and its goal is to support Buddhist practice and meditation. By carefully watching the coming and going of dhammas, and being able to identify which ones are wholesome and to be cultivated, and which ones are unwholesome and to be abandoned, the Buddhist meditator makes use of the Abhidharma as a schema to liberate his mind and realize that all experiences are impermanent, not-self, unsatisfactory and therefore not to be clung to.
References:
[1] Dhamma, U Rewata; Bodhi, Bhikkhu (2000). A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. Buddhist Publication Society. p. 2. ISBN 1–928706–02–9.
[2] Harvey, Peter (2013). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, p. 90. Cambridge University Press.
[3] Y. Karunadasa. (1996). The Dhamma Theory Philosophical Cornerstone of the ABHIDHAMMA. Http://Www.Abhidhamma.Org/. http://www.abhidhamma.org/dhamma_theory_philosophical_corn.htm
[4] Potter, Buswell, Jaini; Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies Volume VII Abhidharma Buddhism to 150 AD, page 74
[5] Bodhi, A comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma, page 3.
[6] Ronkin, Noa, “Abhidharma”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
[7] Ven. Rewata Dhamma, Process of Consciousness and Matter: The Philosophical Psychology of Buddhism, chapter 1
[8] Bodhi, A comprehensive manual of Abhidhamma, page 3.
[9] K. L. Dhammajoti, Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma, page 24
[10] Siderits, Buddhism as philosophy, 112.
