[Buddha-l] Capitalisation of Buddhist Terms

[Richard Hayes]

> I'm inclined to follow the lower-case preferences of the _Chicago Manual
> of Style_ for almost everything except "the Buddha."  But in some
> Christian religious publications, items that _Chicago_ would have lower
> case (e.g., the ten commandments) are capped.  I just don't know the
> preferences in the Buddhist world.  The ideal is to cap only proper nouns,
> not to cap something to show "importance" or "respect."

Not being the Buddhist world, I can't speak for everyone else, but I will anyway. I am completely opposed to capitalization punishment, so I agree with Chicago Manual of Style on this matter. Only proper names, the names of people and texts and cities and so forth, and the title the Buddha should be capitalized. All other words (dharma, nirvana, sangha, prajñā, buddha used as a generic term, tathāgata) should be in lower case, unless they begin a sentence.

In my perusal of contemporary christian literature, I have noticed a tendency to not to capitalize the word "bible", even when it refers to, you know, the allegedly holy bible. Similarly, the names of such religions as christianity, buddhism, hinduism and islam are now left uncapitalized in some writings on comparative religion.

Richard