DHAMMA TOPICS AND THEIR ANALYSIS – ĀNANDAJOTI BHIKKHU

Dhamma Topics and their Analysis

Text compiled from Pāḷi sources and translated by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu

Introduction
Preface
I recently published a text and translation of Arthaviniścayasūtram, a Sanskrit discourse which collects some of the most important teachings found in the early tradition. I have examined the contents and their collection in the Introduction to that work, to which I refer the reader.

The work itself struck me as being one of the finest collections of early Buddhist material that I have come across, and I thought therefore to produce a Pāḷi collection based on the same topics, but an expanded version with extra sections, that included other important teachings, and with a rearrangement of some of the topics.

I have also introduced a new set of topics concerning the Abhidhamma, or Abstract teaching, drawing from the protoAbhidhammic Mahāniddesa, the Abhidhamma books themselves, and the post-Abhidhammic Paṭisambhidāmagga – all of this material is late, but still canonical.

We therefore first have seven Dhamma topics, then seven topics concerning meditation, in the middle the 37 Factors of Awakening, the new section with Abhidhamma-type topics, and then a series of seven topics concerning the special qualities of the Buddha – it is in this latter that three of the four extra-canonical pieces in this work are found1 which are drawn from Milindapañhā, Dīghanikāyaṭṭhakathā and the Milindaṭīkā (sections 30, 32 & 35) respectively. I have also added a new section here, on the modes of deportment (section 34) that are listed in Majjhima 91.