Abstract

In this Essay, I want to give a short account of Buddhist psychology as found in some pieces in the Pali literature, the scriptures the Theravada tradition. This school of Buddhism is the only one of the Hīnayāna schools still existing, and is spread in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. For a full account of Buddhist psychology more topics should have to be included. But I think, it is enough to give a basic understanding of Buddhist psychology and a further elaboration wouldn’t improve that first understanding. It would only introduce more terminitechnici of an ancient and foreign language. After giving a short account of Buddhist philosophy, I will quote and interpret two passages from the Majjhima-nikāya. The first is the Madhupiṇḍika-sutta dealing with perception and the second is the Mūlaparyāya-sutta dealing with psychic differences of worldlings and Arhats. After this I will have a look on the Abhidhamma philosophy as it is described in the Abhidhammaṭṭhasaṅgaha. This is a comprise textbook on Abhidhamma written in the 12th century. It must be clear that there is a difference of time of 17 centuries between the Suttas I discuss here and the Abhidhammaṭṭhasaṅgaha