[Buddha-l] karma or kamma

["Kåre A. Lie"]

At 17:17 19.10.2007 +0200, you wrote:
>I am writing an article about Theravada Buddhism for
>Christian readers and find it hard to decide to use
>the word "karma" or "kamma". It is no big deal because
>the problem is easy to solve but it made me think,
>what is most correct writing about Theravada for
>non-Buddhists, to use well known Sanskrit words or
>should we insist on Pali? Or both?

No matter what solution you go for, you will have to explain the word.

More people know "karma". But that may in fact be a problem. They may 
perhaps associate the word "karma" with diffuse concepts from Hinduism or 
even New Age, so you may have to explain what Buddhist karma is not, before 
you start explaining what it is.

If you use the word "kamma", which is more appropriate in a Theravada 
context, you can save yourself the trouble of saying what it is not, and 
concentrate on explaining what it is, since this word probably will be 
unknown to most Christian readers.

Yours,

Kåre A. Lie
http://www.lienet.no