 What is common to all the three main Abhidharma traditions—Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda, and Sautrāntika—is that they manifest a somewhat similar paradigm shift towards reducing the phenomenal, causally conditioned world into the activity of cognition and consciousness. This shift was part of a broader movement in Indian philosophy in which Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist thinkers turned away from traditional metaphysical questions about the nature of the external world and the self, and focused instead on the study of epistemology, logic, and language. Their purpose was to provide systematic accounts of the nature and means of valid cognition. Within Buddhist circles, this epistemological turn saw the rise of thinkers such as Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, the founders of the Yogācāra (400–480 CE), and, most notably, Dignāga and Dharmakīrti (around 500 CE) who developed sophisticated logical and philosophical systems (ibid, 15–19). The Abhidharma, then, sets the stage for this epistemological turn. The new emphasis becomes dominant from the period of the vibhāṣā compendia onward and is evident in a shift in the terminology used by the Abhidharma to describe the nature of dharmas. This terminological shift is indicated by the terms “particular inherent characteristic” (Skt., svalakṣaṇa, Pali, salakkhaṇa) and “general characteristic” (Skt., sāmānyalakṣaṇa, Pali, sāmānyalakkhaṇa).