ABSTRACT
The Buddha’s teaching, the Dhamma, is presented in the Sutta-pitaka of the Pali Canon as a path to the solution of the fundamental problem of human existence, namely, dukkha, customarily translated as ‘suffering’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. In the Nikayas the processes that bring about the cessation of dukkha are conceived of primarily in terms of spiritual practice and development – such as bhavana (literally ‘bringing into being’, rendered as ‘development’), brahmacariya (‘the holy life’), magga (path) or patipada (way) – thus reflecting an interest in the workings and salvific capability of one’s bodily, speech and mental acts. Although the Buddha’s message does contain doctrinal concepts and theoretical statements on the nature of dukkha, its cause, its cessation and the way to its cessation, these statements function as guidelines for comprehending Buddhist thought and do not amount to a systematic theory. The attempt to ground the Buddha’s scattered teachings in an inclusive theory was introduced later on with the advance of the subsequent Abhidharma/Abhidhamma tradition: a doctrinal movement in Buddhist thought and exegesis that gradually developed during the first centuries after the Buddha’s mahaparinibbana in tandem with distinctive theoretical and practical interests, resulting in an independent branch of inquiry and literary genre, as documented in the third basket of the Pali Canon, the Abhidhamma-pitaka.
