Talk:Venerable (Buddhism)

This article is a bit problematic. Since no Buddhist sect (other than some recent Western creations) uses English as its primary language, it's not really correct to say that any Buddhist sect bestows the title 'Venerable'. What you have is various different titles that mean different things in different sects that are translated as 'Venerable' when the names of monks are put into English. I imagine that Thera (Pali/Sanskrit for 'elder') is what is most commonly meant here; that is commonly used for senior monks in the Theravada tradition. Bhante is another option- often translated as 'Venerable Sir' when put into English. There's also maha (great) that is often thrown in with thera; it means something quite specific with respect to Thai monastic titles (you actually become a maha after passing a certain level of Pali exams- or at least that used to be the rule), but I don't know about anywhere else. I'm not really sure if there is anywhere to go with this particular article --Clay Collier 10:20, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The FPMT seem to use venerable for their older sangha. Secretlondon 10:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)