The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s5.8

c28.s5.8

The Abhidharma was also preserved by the Mahāyānists, i.e. the seven Abhidharma books of the Sarvāstivādins. They were translated into Chinese with the two commentaries, and now exist only in that form. The teaching was systematized in Vasubandhu’s *Abhidharmakośa* and its commentaries, and this was translated both into Chinese and Tibetan, but as this work is not a part of the Scriptures the Tibetan Canon contains no proper Abhidharma. But the Mahāyānists, wanting to have an Abhidharma of their own, made a quite artificial division by taking a group of their sūtras and commentaries and calling it Abhidharma. In the Tibetan they are the *Prajñāpāramitā* sūtras, and in the Chinese the *Vajracchedikā* with commentaries and a number of works by Maitreya, Vasubandhu, and others. Burnouf, although he knew the *Abhidharmakośa*, accepted the *Prajñāpāramitā* as amply representing the Abhidharma, and he added three or four similar sūtras. That is the reason why Abhidharma used to be translated “Metaphysics”.