ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters have dealt with the various doctrinal developments, refinements and shifts of emphasis undergone by the canonical and postcanonical Abhidhamma as part of the systematization of Buddhism and of its consolidation from an oral teaching to an institutionalized tradition (sasana). We have seen that the doctrinal transition from the Sutta mindset to the Abhidhamma worldview is best understood in terms of a change in epistemological attitude and metaphysical foundation (albeit both lines of thought belong to the category of process philosophy), and that at the hub of this change lies the question of what a dhamma is. While in the Sutta period the dhammas served as guidelines for construing sentient experience based on an anti-substantial conceptual scheme, within the Abhidhamma framework the dhammas emerged as particulars – distinct, evanescent constituents of experience – and were gradually assigned a growing metaphysical dimension in the form of their sabhava.
