In this paper, with the aim of investigating the doctrinal background of the Śrāvakabhūmi, I compared the accounts of aśubhabhāvanā with those in āgamas and abhidharma texts and in dhyāna sūtras, focusing especially on the following 4 topics: 36 kinds of impure body, 10 kinds of corpse, 4 types of graveyards, and internal-external contemplation.
Consequently, it became clear that the Śrāvakabhūmi quotes the Smṛtyupasthānasūtra in the Madhyamikāgama, and when it includes detailed explanations and enumerates numbers and types, it uses phrases similar to those in the Samyuktāgama, Saṅgītiparyāya, Dharmaskandha, and Mahāvibhāṣā.
As has been indicated, the framework of the fivefold contemplation, including aśubhabhāvanā, is based on dhyāna sūtras, but the contents are, such as the other four contemplations, dissimilar to those texts. Rather, the Śrāvakabhūmi takes up some sentences of āgamas and develops its own theories while reinforcing them with the same words and phrases as the early abhidharma texts.
