Anagarika Dharmapala

Anagarika Dharmapala

Anagārika Dharmapāla (Pali: Anagārika, [ɐˈnɐɡaːɽɪkɐ]; Sinhalese: Anagarika, lit., Sinhala: අනගාරික ධර්මපාල; 17 September 1864 – 29 April 1933) was a Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and a writer. Anagarika Dharmapāla is noted because he was: the first global Buddhist missionary one of the founding contributors of non-violent Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism a leading figure in the Sri Lankan independence movement against British rule a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct for several centuries the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the Dhamma in three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe.Along with Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky, the creators of the Theosophical Society, he was a major reformer and revivalist of Sinhala Buddhism and an important figure in its western transmission. He also inspired a mass movement of South Indian Dalits including Tamils to embrace Buddhism, half a century before B. R. Ambedkar. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Anagarika Dharmapala has received more than 380,362 page views. His biography is available in 18 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 15 in 2019). Anagarika Dharmapala is the 2,273rd most popular writer (up from 2,579th in 2019), the 10th most popular biography from Sri Lanka (up from 15th in 2019) and the 2nd most popular Sri Lankan Writer.