• DOI:10.1080/0048721X.2013.765630
• Corpus ID: 171027951

Checking the heavenly ‘bank account of karma’: cognitive metaphors for karma in Western perception and early Theravāda Buddhism

@article{Schlieter2013CheckingTH,
  title={Checking the heavenly ‘bank account of karma’: cognitive metaphors for karma in Western perception and early Theravāda Buddhism},
  author={Jens U. Schlieter},
  journal={Religion},
  year={2013},
  volume={43},
  pages={463 - 486}
}

• Jens U. Schlieter
• Published 30 September 2013
• Art
• Religion

To visualize the accumulation of good and bad karma in terms of credit or debt in a bank account is a common feature in works on Buddhism and other Indian traditions. Applying conceptual metaphor theory, this article tracks the metaphorical framework of understanding karma as a kind of ‘heavenly bank account’ back to its roots in early European scholarship. Based on a comparison with metaphors for karma to be found in Pāli texts of the Theravāda tradition, namely, the analogies of ripening, inheritance, and the dark/bright dichotomy, this article argues that the ‘bank-account’ imagery differs in significant – if subtle – respects from these emic metaphors, displaying certain Judeo-Christian preconceptions of moral bookkeeping, sin, and salvation.