ABSTRACT
The preceding chapter has shown that the Buddha clearly had a distinct epistemology, from which the canonical Abhidhamma distilled a well articulated metaphysics. We have identified this conceptual framework as process metaphysics and observed that its basic units analysing experience, the dhammas, fall into the category of occurrences rather than of substance. This has revealed that the primary difference between the Nikaya worldview and the canonical Abhidhamma is epistemological, not ontological: the Nikayas construe the occurrences that make up conscious experience as mental and physical processes, whereas the Abhidhamma sees them as short-lived, psycho-physical events. Throughout the Abhidhamma’s formative period Buddhist thought was subject to a gradual process of institutionalization, schematization and conceptual assimilation, part of which were a growing tendency to reify those dhammic events and an increasing interest in establishing their true nature. Fundamental to this doctrinal development is the concept of sabhava. This concept plays a major role in the systematization of Abhidhamma thought, is closely related to the consolidation of the dhamma theory and is regarded as that which gave an impetus to the Abhidhamma’s growing concern with ontology.
