I don’t, by this question, mean what is in the Abhidhamma pitaka of the Thripitaka, but rather the word abhidhamma scattered in the sutta pitaka. For example:
[discussing a horse similie…]I say, this is his speed. If a deep question on the Teaching and the Discipline is asked, he explains it, without anger. I say, this is his beauty.
If the term is searched it appears quite a few times in the suttas , usually in combination with abhivinaya.
However I haven’t seen it being defined anywhere by the Buddha or his close disciples. I feel this is an important concept in the dhamma that has somehow become transformed into a different thing a century later.
“Abbhidhamma” means something like “explaining in detail”. This is why the term is sometimes present in the suttas. It is not refering to the abbhidhamma book, it is simply refering to “explaining in detail”. They just named that book like that afterwards.
I would recommend watching this introductory lecture on Abhidhamma by Ven. Bodhi. I am not 100% positive, but I think he discusses the meaning of ‘abhidhamma’ at some length.
on Ven. Analayo’s website he talks about it in at least a couple of his published free pdf articles. They’re worth reading.
here’s one of them:
As I recall, he says in EBT the vast majority of the references, abhi-dhamma, similar to abhi-vinaya, in context means “about the dhamma” and “about the discipline”.
But centuries later, the third pitaka “abhidhamma” is meant as “higher dhamma”, something higher and better than the original EBT.
Yes, that’s right, it doesn’t mean “higher”, but is something like the English prefix “meta-”. I’ve wondered whether we could translate it as “metateachings”. But in translation, “about the teachings” works fine.
