Vaibhāṣika

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Vaibhāṣika. An influential Buddhist school of the Hīnayāna, closely related to the Sarvāstivāda, which flourished in NW India principally in Gandhāra and Kashmir. Their name derives from a great treatise known as the Vibhāṣā, compiled in the early centuries of the Christian era as a commentary on a fundamental work of the Abhidharma tradition, the Jñānaprasthāna (Basis of Knowledge) of Katyāyanaputra, a Sarvāstivādin philosopher. The commentary is an encyclopaedia of Vaibhāṣika philosophy.