Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher (1865–1952), was a French scholar, who argued that the Buddha image has Greek origins. He has been called the "father of Gandhara studies", and is a much-cited scholar on ancient Buddhism in northwest Indian subcontinent and the Hindu Kush region.
Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who was one of the most distinguished scholars and expositors of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century. He was highly respected by Sri Lankan Buddhists, who believed that he had achieved a higher level of spiritual development. Sri Lankan Buddhists also considered Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thero as a Bodhisattva, who will attain Buddhahood in a future life.
The Visuddhimagga, is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
Bhikkhu Bodhi, born Jeffrey Block, is an American Theravada Buddhist monk, ordained in Sri Lanka and currently teaching in the New York and New Jersey area. He was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publication Society and has edited and authored several publications grounded in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.
Siri Gunasinghe was a Sri Lankan academic, poet, Sanskritist, art historian, author and filmmaker. He played a crucial role in honing the creativity of free Sinhala poetry. Gunasinghe was one of the most important advocates of the use of spoken language instead of the literary language in Sinhalese literature.
Louis Renou was the pre-eminent French Indologist of the twentieth century.
Deshamanya Nissanka Parakrama Wijeyeratne, known as Nissanka Wijeyeratne, was a Sri Lankan politician, civil servant, diplomat and English language poet. He was also the Diyawadana Nilame of the Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kandy from 1975 to 1985. At the time of death he was serving as the chairman of The Law and Society Trust in Sri Lanka.
Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera, born as Anton Walther Florus Gueth, was one of the earliest Westerners in modern times to become a Bhikkhu, a fully ordained Buddhist monk.
Hammalawa Saddhatissa Maha Thera (1914–1990) was an ordained Buddhist monk, missionary and author from Sri Lanka, educated in Varanasi, London, and Edinburgh. He was a contemporary of Walpola Rahula, also of Sri Lanka.
The German Dharmaduta Society is an organization established to promote Buddhism in Germany and other Western Countries, and was founded by Asoka Weeraratna, in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 21 September 1952.
Ananda Wahihana Palliya Guruge, known as Ananda W. P. Guruge, was a Sri Lankan diplomat, Buddhist scholar and writer. Guruge was the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Sri Lanka to UNESCO, France, and United States during the period from 1985 to 1994. Guruge was adjunct professor of Religious Studies at Cal State Fullerton and was the dean of academic affairs at University of the West.
David Seyfort Ruegg was an eminent American-British Buddhologist with a long career, extending from the 1950s to the present. His specialty was Madhyamaka philosophy, a core doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism.
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It derives mainly from the Tamrashatiya school.
Bhikkhu Anālayo is a bhikkhu, scholar, and meditation teacher. He was born in Germany in 1962, and went forth in 1995 in the Theravāda monastic tradition Sri Lanka. He is best known for his comparative studies of Early Buddhist Texts as preserved by the various early Buddhist traditions.
Anuradha Neelendra Dullewe Wijeyeratne is a Sri Lankan politician and entrepreneur, He has served as the acting Diyawadana Nilame of the Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kandy on several occasions for three decades appointed by the Commissioner General of Buddhist Affairs with recommendation from Mahanayaka Theras of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters of Siam Nikaya. He was a Provincial Councillor of the Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council too. In March 2020, he was invited by the United National Party to contest the Parliamentary General Election 2020 and was appointed as the chief organizer for the Mawanella electorate. In 2020 general elections, Wijeyeratne ran unsuccessfully for the Kegalle District seat in Parliament. He is ideologically positioned on the right wing of the United National Party.
Sīlācāra Bhikkhu, born and died as John Frederick S. McKechnie. He became a Buddhist monk in 1906 and was one of the earliest westerners in modern times to do so.
Pahalawattage Don Premasiri is a Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar specializing in the areas of Buddhist ethics and Buddhist philosophy. Premasiri's academic training represents a synthesis of both the Buddhist and Western philosophical traditions, first at the University of Peradeniya and subsequently at Cambridge and Hawaii. He is currently president of the Buddhist Publication Society and professor emeritus in the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya.
Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk, who was one of the pioneers of Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist movement in the 19th century. He did a great service to improve the Buddhist Education in the country and was the founder of Vidyodaya Pirivena, Maligakanda in 1873, which was granted the university status later in 1959 by the Government of Sri Lanka. A veteran author and a fiery orator, he was a major figure in the Panadurawadaya, a religious debate held between Christian missionaries and Buddhist monks in 1873 at Panadura, Sri Lanka. He was well versed in Sinhala, Pali, Sanskrit, English, Buddhism, history, arithmetic, and archaeology and was one of the primary sources of information on Buddhism for the success of the Panadura debate.
Asoka Weeraratna was a Sri Lankan (Sinhala) Buddhist missionary, who founded the German Dharmaduta Society in 1952. He is also the founder of the Berlin Buddhist Vihara, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Europe and Mitirigala Nissarana Vanaya, a famous meditation monastery in the Western Province, Sri Lanka. Asoka Weeraratna later entered the Order of Buddhist monks in 1972 as Ven. Mitirigala Dhammanisanthi Thera and spent his later life as a forest monk at the Mitirigala Nissarana Vanaya for a period of 27 years.
Bhikkhu Pāsādika, born August 17, 1939 at Bad Arolsen in Hesse, is a German indologist and a Buddhist monk. His Dharma or religious name Pāsādika is a Pali word meaning "amiable".
