Entrance Into The Abhidharma: Skandila's Abhidharmāvatāra

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This is a newly published book of English translation of Abhidharmavatara composed by Skandila translated from Chinese text by Ven. KL Dhammajoti. This text is a remarkable Abhidharma manual of Abhidharmika/Vaibhasika school of Sarvastivada and – I think – this is a valuable book on the subject because the modern study on Sarvastivada school in Western scholarship is mainly based on Abhidharmakosa-Bhasya composed by Vasubandhu which wrote the Sarvastivada Abhidharma compendium from critical perspective of Sautrantika school.

𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐚: 𝐒𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐥𝐚’𝐬 𝐀𝐛𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦ā𝐯𝐚𝐭ā𝐫𝐚 (3rd Edition) by 𝙆𝙇 𝘿𝙝𝙖𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙟𝙤𝙩𝙞

Publisher: The Buddha-Dharma Centre of Hong Kong
(Hong Kong, 2024). pp. 375++ ISBN: 978-988-76863-1-6

Contents:

Foreword
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the Third Edition
Abbreviations

Part I: Introduction

  1. Abhidharmāvatāra as a Sarvāstivāda manual
  2. The schematic organization of Avatāra
  3. The Chinese and Tibetan versions, and the present English translation
  4. The development of the Sarvāstivāda manuals
  5. The Ābhidharmikas and the other subgroups within the Sarvāstivāda
  6. Avatāra on the avijñapti
  7. Avatāra on the caitasikas
  8. Avatāra on the citta-viprayukta-saṃskāras
  • Appendix: Translation of Sanskrit and Tibetan passages on jīvitendriya, sabhāgatā, vedanā and saṃjñā, cited in Part I §7 and §8
  1. Avatāra and Ny (and SPrŚ)
  2. Avatāra on the characteristics of the saṃskṛta dharmas
  3. The date, authorship and affiliation of Avatāra

Part II: The English Translation

Preliminaries
0. Enumeration of the eight padārtha

I. The Category of Matter (rūpa-padārtha)
Unmanifest or non-information matter (avijñapti-rūpa)
The acquisition and relinquishment of the three kinds of non-information
The characteristics of dharmas

II. The Category of Sensation (vedanā-padārtha)
III. The Category of Ideation (saṃjñā-padārtha)

IV. The Category of Conditionings (saṃskāra-padārtha)
IVa. The Conjoined Conditionings (citta-saṃprayukta-saṃskāra)
The spheres, planes of existence, births, stages
The knowledges and receptivities
The abandonment of defilement and spiritual attainment
IVb. Conditionings disjoined from the mind (cittaviprayukta-saṃskāra)
The nature of the non-acquisitions
The ideationless attainment (asaṃjñi-samāpatti)
The cessation attainment (nirodha-samāpatti)
The ideationlessness (āsaṃjñika)
The vital faculty (jīvitendriya)
Group-homogeneity (nikāya-sabhāgatā)
The four characteristics of the conditioned dharmas
The groups of words (nāma), phrases (pada), syllables (vyañjana)

V. The Category of Consciousness (vijñāna-padārtha)
The six causes, the five fruits and the four conditions

VI. The Category of Space (ākāśa-padārtha)
VII. The Category of the Cessation through Deliberation (pratisaṃkhyā-nirodha-padārtha)
VIII. The Category of the Cessation Independent of Deliberation (apratisaṃkhyā-nirodha-padārtha)
IX. Concluding remarks

Part III: The Tibetan and Chinese Texts

Selected Bibliography
Sanskrit-Tibetan-Chinese-English Glossary
Index

To order, please write to publication@buddha-dharma.org with your name and postal address

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