EARLY BUDDHIST METAPHYSICS: THE MAKING OF A PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITION.
Series: ROUTLEDGECURZON CRITICAL STUDIES IN BUDDHISM. SER: OXFORD CENTRE FOR BUDDHIST STUDIES
Publisher: ROUTLEDGECURZON
Published: 2005
Place of publication: LONDON
Language: und; eng
Number of pages: 279
Description: "This book provides a philosophical account of the major doctrinal shift in the history of early Theravada tradition in India: the transition from the earliest stratum of Buddhist thought to the systematic and allegedly scholastic philosophy of the Pali Abhidhamma movement. Conceptual investigation into the development of Buddhist ideas is pursued, thus rendering the Buddha's philosophical position more explicit and showing how and why his successors changed it. Entwining comparative philosophy and Buddhology, the author probes the Abhidhamma's shift from an epistemologically oriented conceptual scheme to a metaphysical worldview that is based on the concept of dhamma."--BOOK JACKET.