Piyadassi Maha Thera

Who was Piyadassi Maha Thera?

Piyadassi Maha Thera is best known as a great preacher of the Dhamma both in Sinhala and in English and it was in this field that his popularity was foremost. He was born on 8 July 1914 at Kotahena in Colombo, Sri Lanka and was educated at Nalanda College Colombo, thereafter at the University of Sri Lanka and the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University, as a research student.

At the age of twenty he entered the Buddhist Order and mastered the religion and philosophy of Buddhism under the erudite scholar monk Venerable Pelene Siri Vajiragnana Nayaka Thera, founder of the Vajirarama Bambalapitiya. Later he received his higher ordination under the tutorship of Venerable Vajiranna, founding superior of the Vajirarama Colombo, a most well-known authority on Buddhism.

Venerable Mahathera Piyadassi was one of the world's most eminent Buddhist monks having traveled widely carrying the message of the Buddha-Dhamma, both to the East and to West, he was able to write in a style that has universal appeal.

Ven. Piyadassi Maha Thera was the Sinhala editor at the Buddhist Publication Society until his death. Along with Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, he was one of the chief kalyana mittas of well-known American scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi.