Walpola Rahula Thero

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Walpola Rahula Thero
TitleProfessor
Personal
Born9 May 1907
Walpola, Sri Lanka
Died18 September 1997
Colombo, Sri Lanka
ReligionBuddhism
NationalitySri Lankan
SchoolTheravada

Walpola Rahula Thero (9 May 1907–18 September 1997) was a

Theravada Buddhism.[2]

Biography

He was born on 9 May 1907 at Walpola, a small village in the Galle district of southern Sri Lanka.

Solomon Bandaranaike. He left Vidyodaya University in 1969, due to political differences with the government of the day. Thereafter, he returned to the West and worked in many academic institutions in Europe. He returned to Sri Lanka during his last days, and lived in the temple near the New Parliament in Kotte, until his death.[citation needed
]

Academic career

Rahula Thero attended Ceylon university (now known as the

Calcutta University and later studied Mahayana at the Sorbonne. It was during his time at the Sorbonne in the late 1950s that he produced What the Buddha Taught, a widely read and highly influential [4][5]
introductory text on Buddhism, for which he is best known.

Walpola Rahula Thero is the first Buddhist monk to become a professor in a Western University. When he became Professor of History and Literature of Religions there were no Theravada Temples in the United States. He later became a Professor Emeritus at the same university. Rahula also held positions at several other American Universities. He was a visiting lecturer at

UCLA
. He became Vice-Chancellor of Vidyoda University (now Sri Jayawardhanapura University) in 1964. He was later instrumental in encouraging the formation of the first Theravada temple in the United States, the Washington Buddhist Vihara, located in Washington, D.C.

Titles

Rahula Thero was awarded several titles during his lifetime. The highest honorary title, Tripitakavagisvaracarya (Supreme Master of Buddhist Scriptures), was given him by Sri Kalyapi Samagri Sangha-sabha (the Chapter of the

Sangha
in Sri Lanka) in 1965, with the qualification Sri (Gracious), a title held by only two or three scholars in Sri Lanka. He was also awarded the title "Aggamaha Panditha" from Burma.

Publications

Rahula Thero wrote extensively about Theravada Buddhism. Apart from his world-renowned book What the Buddha Taught, he published an enormous number of papers on Buddhism. Notable books written by him include, History of Buddhism in Ceylon, Heritage of the Bhikkhu, Zen and the Taming of the Bull and Le Compendium de la Super Doctrine (French).

Bibliography

See also

  • "
    Basic Points Unifying the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna
    " (1967/1981), developed by Ven. Rahula

References

  1. ISBN 81-207-2536-0
    . He (Walpola Rahula Thero) was the first Buddhist monk to occupy a professorial chair in a western university - Northwestern University in Chicago
  2. ^ Remembering Walpola Rahula, by Ven. W. Piyananda
  3. ^ Webb, R. (1997) Obituary: Walpola Rahula (9 May 1907 - 18 September 1997). Buddhist Studies Review 14(2), 185–187
  4. ^ Anderson 2001, p. 197.
  5. ^ Gimello 2004, p. 240-241.

Sources

  • Anderson, Carol (2001), Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths in the Theravada Buddhist Canon, Motilall Banarsidas
  • Gimello, Robert M. (2004), "Icon and Incantation: the Goddess Zhunti and the Role of Images in the Occult Buddhism of Cina", in Granoff, Phyllis; Shinohara, Shinohara (eds.), Images in Asian Religions: Text and Contexts, UBC Press
  • Jenkins, Stephen (2002), "Black Ships, Blavatsky, and the Pizza Effect", in Hori, Victor Sōgen; Hayes, Richard P.; Shields, James Mark (eds.), Teaching Buddhism in the West: From the Wheel to the Web, Psychology Press

External links

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