The Abhidharma-samuccaya (Sanskrit; ; English: "Compendium of

Abhidharma The Abhidharma are ancient (third 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 f ...

") is a Buddhist text composed by Asaṅga. The ''Abhidharma-samuccaya'' is a systematic account of

. According to J. W. de Jong it is also "one of the most important texts of the

Yogācāra Yogachara ( sa, योगाचार, IAST: '; literally "yoga practice"; "one whose practice is yoga") is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through t ...

school."Review of Rahula, Walpola ''Abhidharmasamuccaya'' by J. W. de Jong in Asanga; Boin-Webb, Sara; Rahula, Walpola (2001), pp. 291-299. riginal French published in T'oung Pao, LIX (1973), pp. 339-46. Reprinted in Buddhist Studies byJ.W. dejong, ed. Gregory Schopen, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1979, pp. 601-8./ref> According to Frauwallner, this text is based on the Abhidharma of the Mahīśāsaka tradition. The text exists in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

and a reconstructed

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

version. Its

Taishō Tripiṭaka The Taishō Tripiṭaka (; Japanese: ''Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō''; “ Taishō Revised Tripiṭaka”) is a definitive edition of the Chinese Buddhist canon and its Japanese commentaries used by scholars in the 20th century. It was edited by ...

(Chinese Canon) number is 1605. In the Tibetan

Kangyur The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined collection of sacred texts recognized by various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, comprising the Kangyur or Kanjur ('Translation of the Word') and the Tengyur or Tanjur ( Tengyur) ('Translation of Trea ...

, it is number 4049 in the Derge Kangyur and 5550 in the Peking Kangyur. According to Traleg Rinpoche, the ''Abhidharma-samuccaya'' is one of Asanga's most essential texts and also one of the most psychologically oriented. It provides a framework, as well as a general pattern, as to how a practitioner is to follow the path, develop oneself and finally attain Buddhahood.Traleg Rinpoche (1993), p.1. It presents the path according to the

school of

Mahayana Buddhism ''Mahāyāna'' (; "Great Vehicle") is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in India (c. 1st century BCE onwards) and is considered one of the three main existing bra ...

Overview

According to de Jong, "whilst the ''

Mahāyānasaṃgraha The Mahāyānasaṃgraha (MSg) (Sanskrit; zh, t=攝大乘論, p=Shè dàchéng lùn, Tibetan: ''theg pa chen po bsdus pa''), or the Mahāyāna Compendium/Summary, is a key work of the Yogācāra school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy, attrib ...

'' is a compendium of specifically Māhāyanist teachings of the Yogācra school, the ''Samuccaya'' is a systematic guide to the Abhidharma section of the doctrinal system of the said school." According to

Dan Lusthaus Dan Lusthaus is an American writer on Buddhism. He is a graduate of Temple University's Department of Religion, and is a specialist in '' Yogācāra''. The author of several articles and books on the topic, Lusthaus has taught at UCLA, Florida Sta ...

, Asaṅga, "was primarily an Agamist, i.e., one who based himself on the ''āgamas''. This text served as his overview of abhidharma from his developing Yogacaric perspective." The ''Abhidharmasamuccaya'' survives in full Chinese (by

Xuanzang Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of ...

) and Tibetan translations (by

Yeshe de There appear to be two Jnanasutras, with different Tibetan orthographies for their names. The first, , flourished from the 5th-6th centuries. According to Dzogchen legends, he was an early Dzogchen practitioner of Vajrayāna Buddhism and a disc ...

). About two fifths of the Sanskrit text was recovered in Tibet by Rāhula Saṅkṛtyayana in 1934 and Pralhad Pradhan produced a reconstructed Sanskrit version of the full text in 1950 (basing himself on the Sanskrit material as well as the Chinese and Tibetan translations).

Walpola Rahula Walpola Rahula Thero (1907–1997) was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, scholar and writer. In 1964, he became the Professor of History and Religions at Northwestern University, thus becoming the first bhikkhu to hold a professorial chair in the Weste ...

translated this reconstruction into French in 1971.Lusthaus, Dan
Asaṅga's ''Abhidharmasamuccaya,'' 大乘阿毘達磨集論
acmuller.net Contemporary scholar Achim Bayer asserts that the thought of different sections of the ''Abhidharma-samuccaya'' might be heterogenous. For example, the important term ''ālayavijñāna'' (" Store-house Consciousnesses") appears not more than six times, with all six occurrences in the "Lakṣaṇasamuccaya" section, i.e. within in the first third of the work.Bayer (2010), p.11. According to

the ''Abhidharmasamuccaya'' is more faithful to the presentation of the dhyānas found in the suttas than the Theravada Abhidhamma texts.

Mental factors

The second chapter of this text enumerates fifty-one mental factors ( sa, caitasikā), divided into the following categories: * five ever-functioning factors (, 遍行心所, ko, 변행심소), * five ascertaining (object-determining) ones (''yul nges lnga'', 別境心所, ko, 별경심소), * eleven virtuous (or constructive) emotions (''dge ba bcu gcig'', 善心所, ko, 선심소), * six root disturbing emotions and attitudes (''rtsa nyon drug'', 煩惱心所, ko, 번뇌심소), * twenty auxiliary disturbing emotions (''nye nyon nyi shu'', 隨煩惱心所, ko, 수번뇌심소), * four changeable factors (''gzhan 'gyur bzhi'', 不定心所, ko, 부정심소).

Commentaries

There are various commentaries to this text, including: * ''Abhidharmasamuccayabhāṣya.'' The full Sanskrit manuscript was re-discovered and photographed by Rāhula Saṅkṛtyayana. A critical edition, edited by Nathmal Tatia, was published in 1976. It also exists in a Tibetan translation. The Tibetan canon attributes this text to Jinaputra, while the Chinese canon attributes it to a certain Chueh Shih tsu (Buddhasiṃha?). * ''Abhidharmasamuccayavyākhyā'' (which is a combination of the ''Abhidharmasamuccaya'' and its ''bhāṣya''). It exists in Tibetan translation and in Chinese translation (''Dasheng apidamo zaji lun'' 大乘阿毘達磨雜集論). The Tibetan canon attributes this text to Jinaputra, while the Chinese canon attributes it to Sthiramati. * K'uei-chi wrote a sub-commentary to Xuanzang's translation of the ''Abhidharmasamuccayavyākhyā.'' *A Tibetan commentary by

Bu-ston Butön Rinchen Drup (), (1290–1364), 11th Abbot of Shalu Monastery, was a 14th-century Sakya master and Tibetan Buddhist leader. Shalu was the first of the major monasteries to be built by noble families of the Tsang dynasty during Tibet's g ...

(1290–1364). *A Tibetan commentary by

Gyaltsab Je Gyaltsab Je () (1364 – 1432) or more elaborately, Gyaltsab Dharma Rinchen was born in the Tsang province of central Tibet. He was a famous student of Je Tsongkhapa, and actually became the first Ganden Tripa (throne holder) of the Gelug tradition ...

(1364-1432). *A Tibetan commentary by Sabzang Mati Panchen Jamyang Lodrö (1294-1376).Tsering Wangchuk (2017). ''The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows: Tibetan Thinkers Debate the Centrality of the Buddha-Nature Treatise'', p. 153. SUNY Press.

Notes

Sources

* Bayer, Achim (2010)
''The Theory of Karman in the Abhidharmasamuccaya.''
Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. * Berzin, Alexander (2006)
''Primary Minds and the 51 Mental Factors''
Study Buddhism. * Traleg Rinpoche (1993). ''The Abhidharmasamuccaya: Teachings by the Venerable Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche''. The Kagyu E-Vam Buddhist Institut

Multilingual edition of the first chapter of Abhidharmasamuccaya in the Bibliotheca Polyglotta
*Asanga; Boin-Webb, Sara; Rahula, Walpola (2001). ''Abhidharmasamuccaya: The Compendium of the Higher Teaching (Philosophy)'', Asian Humanities Press. *Dan Martin. ''Gray Traces: Tracing the Tibetan Teaching Transmission of the mNgon pa kun btus (Abhidharmasamuccaya) Through the Early Period of Disunity in Helmut Eimer and David Germano (ed.), ''The Many Canons of Tibetan Buddhism'', Leiden: Brill, 2002 {{Yogācāra Mahayana texts Abhidharma Yogacara 4th-century books