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Nyanaponika Thera

Nyanaponika Thera

1901 CE1994 CE · Modern · Hanau

1901–1994 CE

Nyanaponika Thera (Siegmund Feniger, 1901–1994 CE) was a German-born Theravāda monk and scholar who did much to present Buddhist meditation to a global readership. Born into a Jewish family in Hanau and drawn to Buddhism in Berlin, he left Germany in 1936 and was ordained in Sri Lanka by Nyanatiloka. In 1958 he helped found the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy, which he led for decades, and his book 'The Heart of Buddhist Meditation' became an influential modern exposition of satipaṭṭhāna mindfulness practice. He is well documented and treated aniconically.

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Hanau

What they did here

DOCUMENTED: born Siegmund Feniger in 1901 into a Jewish family; encountered Buddhism in Berlin before emigrating as the Nazi threat grew.

About Hanau

Hanau, near Frankfurt in the German state of Hesse, was the birthplace, in 1901, of Siegmund Feniger, who as Nyanaponika Thera became a noted German-born Theravāda monk, co-founder of the Buddhist Publication Society in Sri Lanka and author of 'The Heart of Buddhist Meditation.'

See other sages who lived in Hanau

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Nyanaponika Thera’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

In the same tradition

Bhikkhu Bodhi

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Nyanaponika Thera’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.