Abhidharma
Basic Meaning
Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha.
Has the Sense of
The term has the sense of making knowledge and meaning manifest through intelligent analysis and systematic presentation.
| Term Variations | |
| Key Term | Abhidharma |
|---|---|
| Topic Variation | abhidharma |
| Tibetan | ཆོས་མངོན་པ། ( Chö ngonpa) |
| Wylie Transliteration | chos mngon pa ( Chö ngonpa) |
| Devanagari Sanskrit | अभिधर्म ( abhidharma) |
| Romanized Sanskrit | abhidharma ( abhidharma) |
| Chinese | 阿毗达磨 |
| Chinese Pinyin | āpídámó |
| Buddha-nature Site Standard English | abhidharma |
| Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | manifest knowledge |
| Ives Waldo's English Term | abhidharma |
| Term Information | |
| Source Language | Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning | Abhidharma generally refers to the corpus of Buddhist texts which deals with the typological, phenomenological, metaphysical, and epistemological presentation of Buddhist concepts and teachings. The abhidharma teachings present a meta-knowledge of Buddhist sūtras through analytical and systemic schemas and are said to focus on developing wisdom among the three principles of training. The Abhidharma is presented alongside Sūtra and Vinaya as one of the three baskets of the teachings of the Buddha. |
| Has the Sense of | The term has the sense of making knowledge and meaning manifest through intelligent analysis and systematic presentation. |
| Related Terms | sūtra, vinaya |
| Term Type | Noun |
| Definitions | |
| Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary | Abhidharma, knowledge, 'actual things', metaphysics. Abhidharma. One of the three parts of the Tripitaka, the Words of the Buddha. Systematic teachings on metaphysics focusing on developing discriminating knowledge by analyzing elements of experience and investigating the nature of existing things. |
| Tshig mdzod Chen mo | ཟག་པ་མེད་པའི་ཤེས་རབ་རྗེས་འབྲངས་དང་བཅས་པ་དང་།་དེ་མངོན་དུ་བྱ་བའི་ཐོས་བསམ་གྱི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་སོགས་དང་།་དེ་དག་སྟོན་པའི་གཞུང་སྟེ།་ལྷག་པ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་བསླབ་པ་གཙོ་བོར་སྟོན་པའི་བཀའ་དང་དགོངས་འགྲེལ་རྣམས་སོ། |