Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge c14.66

c14.66

(744) The psychology of perception in the Nikāyas has been studied by Dr Sarathchandra, who is impressed by the empiricist approach to the subject found here. He says that 'what is most interesting in the analysis of mind contained in this literature is its empiricist approach and the fact that this approach produced results which are strikingly similar to those produced by modern psychologists using introspective methods...I believe that these are the first speculations putting forward a naturalistic view of mind and the closest in the ancient world to present-day psychological theories'.¹ The *raison d'être* of this new theory of perception according to Dr Sarathchandra is that 'Buddhism having cast aside the current conceptions about the soul, had to advance an alternative hypothesis to explain such functions of the senses as seeing, hearing, smelling or tasting which, in the Upaniṣadic philosophy, were activities of the Ātman residing in the respective sense-organs' (*op. cit.*, p. 3).