Anagārika Dharmapāla
1864 CE–1933 CE · Modern · Colombo
1864–1933 CE
Anagārika Dharmapāla (1864–1933 CE), born Don David Hewavitarne in Colombo, was a central figure of the modern Buddhist revival in colonial Ceylon and an early global Buddhist missionary. He founded the Maha Bodhi Society in 1891 to recover the Bodh Gaya site for Buddhists, presented Theravāda Buddhism at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and promoted a reformist, lay-oriented and nationalist Buddhism—taking the intermediate status of anagārika ('homeless one') between monk and layperson for most of his life, receiving full bhikkhu ordination only at Sārnāth shortly before his death. His legacy is significant and, in its Sinhala-nationalist dimension, also debated. He died at Sārnāth in 1933.
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Two Buddhists at the 1893 Chicago Parliament
At the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, the Sri Lankan revivalist Anagārika Dharmapāla (1864–1933) addressed the delegates in person at age 29 — while the paper presented for the Japanese Zen master Soyen Shaku had been translated into English by his young student, the future writer D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966), then in his early twenties.
Meet D. T. Suzuki →How we know
World's Parliament of Religions, Chicago (Sept 11–27, 1893): Anagārika Dharmapāla (b. 17 Sept 1864, d. 1933) spoke in person; Soyen Shaku's paper "The Law of Cause and Effect as Taught by Buddha," translated by D. T. Suzuki (b. 18 Oct 1870, d. 1966; then 22), was read aloud by an organizer.
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Colombo
What they did here
DOCUMENTED: born Don David Hewavitarne in Colombo; a leading figure of the Sinhala Buddhist revival under colonial rule.
About Colombo
Colombo is the largest city and commercial capital of Sri Lanka, on the island's west coast. It was the birthplace of the Buddhist reformer Anagārika Dharmapāla (born David Hewavitarne in 1864), founder of the Maha Bodhi Society, and a centre of the modern Sri Lankan Buddhist revival; the activist A.T. Ariyaratne, founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement, was also long active in the city.
In Colombo at the same time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Anagārika Dharmapāla’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Anagārika Dharmapāla’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
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