The History of Buddhist Thought c20.26

c20.26

The whole of this method occurs in Abhidhamma works proper. The synonyms were applied in any context and used for any exposition, and we find much of the material repeated in various places in the Abhidhamma books.⁴ Some of it also occurs in the old verbal commentary on the *Sutta-vibhanga* in the Vinaya, evidently in an earlier stage, for there the definitions, which sometimes correspond with those in the *Niddesa*, explain the words in their context without lists of synonyms.¹