Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c14.s2.4

c14.s2.4

It is reasonable to accept the view that the *Abhidhamma Piṭaka*, as we have it in the Pali Canon, is the definite work of this school, a systematic scholasticism based on the Suttas, but nevertheless often advancing in detail beyond them. The date of the Abhidharma and its redaction in its present shape are alike unknown to us, but we may reasonably believe that it was composed from the first in Pali, whereas the Vinaya and the Suttas were redacted in Pali—doubtless with many additions of original composition—on the basis of earlier work in a dialect more closely vernacular.