The notion of verification in early Buddhism

Abstract

Epistemological issues found in early Buddhism are rife with the possibilities of comparative studies. Among them the notion of verification has received the most scholarly attention. This study examines two interpretations of the early Buddhist notion of verification: those of K.N. Jayatilleke and Frank J. Hoffman. Jayatilleke interprets this notion as being akin to the Western empiricist tradition. Hoffman argues against Jayatilleke and identifies this notion in terms of religious experience in the analogous sense of the Western theistic religious conception. Both interpretations, in my judgment, fail to recognize a fundamental aspect of the early Buddhist notion of verification, that is, its deconstructive nature. This study argues that according to early Buddhism sensory experience is a construct embedded in various factors of human personality, and therefore verification of empirical reality is predominantly deconstructive in the sense that it requires a penetrative attitude on the part of the subject in phenomenologically dislodging the embedded layers of experience.