--- Bankei <bankei@...> skrev:

> I beleive Virupa is ordained in a Japanese Pure Land
> traditon, and therefore
> the word 'Priest' may be more suitable in that case.

When looking through the messages again, I see that
sometimes he subskribes his name plus the title
"Thera". In Theravada tradition, calling oneself Thera
means claiming to be a fully ordained Theravada
bhikkhu for att least ten years; so taking him for a
Theravada bhikkhu is actually quite natural.

Outside the Theravada tradition, but inside the Pali
one, the "Altbuddhistische Gemeinde" in Germany used,
and perhaps still uses, to call its founder Georg
Grimm "der Mahathero", but this is not Theravada usage
of the word. A Mahathera has been fully ordained for
at least twenty years, and Grimm was never ordained at
all, as far as I know.

As Virupa in a later message tells us he is married,
he is by definition not a Thera according to the
Theravada use of the word, and when writing to a list
where most members are mainly interested in Theravada,
he is confusing matters by using this title.

Gunnar