End of Vassa, Abhidhamma Day 2018

Today, 24 October 2018, is the last day of Vassa, the three month period in which monks and nuns remain in one domicile. On the Burmese calendar, it is also called Abhidhamma Day, the day on which the Buddha descended from Tusita heaven after having spent vassa teaching Abhidhamma to his mother there.

“The wise who are intent on absorption,
who love the peace of renunciation,
even the gods are envious of them,
the Complete Buddhas, those who are mindful.” Dhp 181

“Ye jhānapasutā dhīrā,
nekkhammūpasame ratā;
Devāpi tesaṁ pihayanti,
sambuddhānaṁ satīmataṁ.”

“Người trí chuyên thiền định,
Thích an tịnh viễn ly,
Chư thiên đều ái kính,
Bậc chánh giác, chánh niệm.”

修習禪定,歡喜涅槃寂靜,
正念正覺的佛陀,諸天也敬愛。

အကြင်ပညာရှိတို့သည် သမထဈာန်၌ လေ့ကျက်အားထုတ်ကုန်၏။
ကာမမှ ထွက်မြောက်မှု ကိလေသာငြိမ်းမှု၌ မွေ့လျော်ကုန်၏။
သစ္စာလေးပါးတရားကို ကောင်းစွာ သိကုန်သော လွန်ကဲသော သတိရှိကုန်သော
ထိုပညာရှိတို့အား နတ် ဗြဟ္မာတို့သည်လည်း ချစ်မြတ်နိုးကြကုန်၏။

Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha

Well, what started as a sorta meditative exercise turned into a full blown project. Below the fold is the romanised Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha Pāḷi transliterated from Burmese script, based on the printed version of the Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana (apparently, the online version has some typos and omissions). So, if you are comparing the Sri Lankan/Thai version with this, there will be some discrepancies. If there are errors, please let me know so I can correct them.
Continue reading Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha

Pavāraṇā Day – Abhidhamma Day

Today, 8 October 2014, marks the last day of Vassa for Theravāda monastics. The vassa, or “rains”, is a three month period every year when monastics remain in one place, usually a monastery or temple. Many take this time to work harder in their studies and meditation practice, and sometimes make themselves available for special Dhamma teaching to the lay devotees. The pavāraṇā part, or invitation, is a special ceremony in which each individual atones for any offences committed during this period in front of the rest of the Saṅgha.

buddha tavatimsa abhidhamma

In Myanmar, today is also known as Abhidhamma Day. According to legend, seven years after the Buddha attained awakening, he spent his vassa in Tāvatimsa heaven to expound the Abhidhamma to his mother, whom as you may remember, passed away 7 days after his birth. On the last day of vassa, he descended from the heaven back to earth on a bejewled staircase. I couldn’t find an artistic representation that spoke to me, so here is one of him given the teaching.