Basket of Special Doctrine
Abhidhamma Pitaka, (Pali: “Basket of Special Doctrine” or “Further Doctrine”) , Sanskrit Abhidharma Pitaka, the third—and historically the latest—of the three “baskets,” or collections of texts, that together compose the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism, the form predominant in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

The Abhidhamma Piṭaka (Pali; Sanskrit: Abhidharma Piṭaka; English: Basket of Higher Doctrine) is a collection of canonical texts in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

After fighting off Mara, an evil spirit who tempted him with worldly comforts and desires, Siddhartha reached enlightenment, becoming a Buddha at the age of 35. The Gautama Buddha then traveled to the deer park near Benares, India, where he gave his first sermon and outlined the basic doctrines of Buddhism.

Its author, Vasubandhu, who lived in the 4th or 5th century in the northwestern part of India, wrote the work while he was still a monk of the Sarvastivada (Doctrine That All Is Real) order, before he embraced Mahayana, on whose texts he was later to write a number of commentaries.

Modern scholarship. Modern scholars generally believe that the canonical Abhidharma texts emerged after the time of the Buddha, in around the 3rd century BCE.

Siddhartha Gautama
Gautama Buddha/Full name

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,…

Some in the West have considered the Abhidhamma to be the core of what is referred to as ” Buddhism and 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.

Abhidharma (Sanskrit) or Abhidhamma (Pali) are ancient (3rd century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the field of knowledge that this method is said to study.

While the Mahāsāṅghika Vinaya does not speak of an Abhidharma apart from the Sutra Pitaka and the Vinaya Pitaka, the Mahīśāsaka, Theravāda, Dharmaguptaka and Sarvāstivāda Vinayas all provide different accounts which mention that there was some kind of Abhidharma to be learned aside from the Sutras and Vinaya.