Aniruddha Mahathera ( ne, अनिरुद्ध महाथेरा) (born Gaja Ratna Tuladhar) (15 December 1915 – 17 February 2003) was a Nepalese Buddhist monk and the Sangha Nayak (Patriarch) of Nepal from 1998 until his death in 2003. He was one of the most important figures in the revival of

Theravada Buddhism ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

in Nepal and the development of

Lumbini Lumbinī ( ne, लुम्बिनी, IPA=ˈlumbini , "the lovely") is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Rupandehi District of Lumbini Province in Nepal. It is the place where, according to Buddhist tradition, Queen Mahamayadevi gave birth ...

, the Buddha's birthplace in southern Nepal, into a center of international pilgrimage.

Early life

Aniruddha (alternative name: Aniruddha Mahasthavir) was born at

Asan Asan () is a city in South Chungcheong Province, South Korea. It borders the Seoul Capital Area to the north. Asan has a population of approximately 300,000. Asan is known for its many hot springs and is a city of spas. Asan has grown into th ...

Dhalasikwa,

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

to father Das Ratna and mother Dibya Laxmi

Tuladhar Tulādhar (Devanagari: तुलाधर) is a Nepali/Nepalese caste from the Newar community of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. The name Tuladhar is derived from the Sanskrit words "tula" (weighing scale) and "dhar" (possessor), thus meaning sca ...

. He was named Gaja Ratna Tuladhar and belonged to a merchant family with a business house in

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

. His father engaged in trade in Tibet before becoming a Buddhist monk taking up the name

Dhammalok Mahasthavir Dhammalok Mahasthavir ( ne, धम्मालोक महास्थविर) (born Das Ratna Tuladhar) (16 January 1890 – 17 October 1966) was a Nepalese Buddhist monk who worked to revive Theravada Buddhism in Nepal in the 1930s and 1 ...

. Gaja Ratna was eight years old when his father Das Ratna took him along to Lhasa in 1923 as his mother had died and he couldn't be left behind in Kathmandu. Returning from Tibet, he was enrolled at Central Hindu Boarding School in

Varanasi Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic t ...

. In 1925, Gaja Ratna came back to Kathmandu.

To Sri Lanka and Myanmar

Gaja Ratna accompanied his father to

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

on another business trip. There he decided that he wanted to study Buddhism in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, and in 1929, he sailed to

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

. He enrolled in the Vidyalankara Pirivena Buddhist college and became a novice monk, and was given the name Aniruddha. After spending five years in Sri Lanka and becoming proficient in Sinhala, Pali,

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and English, he went to Kusinagar, India. Aniruddha then traveled to Burma (now known as

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

) for further studies in Buddhism. A year later in 1937, he received higher ordination in

Moulmein Mawlamyine (also spelled Mawlamyaing; , ; th, เมาะลำเลิง ; mnw, မတ်မလီု, ), formerly Moulmein, is the fourth-largest city in Myanmar (Burma), ''World Gazetteer'' south east of Yangon and south of Thaton, at th ...

. He lived in Moulmein for 10 years studying Burmese and Buddhist literature. In the midst of his study,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

came to Burma, and he had to keep moving to escape the fighting.

Return to Nepal

Aniruddha returned to Nepal in 1946, and became the first editor of ''

Dharmodaya ''Dharmodaya'' ( ne, धर्मोदय) was a monthly magazine in Nepal Bhasa on Theravada Buddhism. It was launched from Kalimpong, India, in 1947 to counter the ban on publication in Nepal. ''Dharmodaya'' was published by Dharmodaya Sabha, ...

'', a Buddhist magazine in

Nepal Bhasa Newar (), or Newari and known officially in Nepal as Nepal Bhasa, is a Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Newar people, the indigenous inhabitants of Nepal Mandala, which consists of the Kathmandu Valley and surro ...

which started publication in 1947 from

Kalimpong Kalimpong (Hindi: कलिम्पोंग) is a town and the headquarters of an eponymous district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located at an average elevation of . The town is the headquarters of the Kalimpong district. The re ...

. Later, he moved to Lumbini and dedicated himself to developing it as a place of pilgrimage. Lumbini was then a vacant patch surrounded by jungle. The spot, marked by an

Ashokan pillar The pillars of Ashoka are a series of monolithic columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected or at least inscribed with edicts by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka during his reign from c. 268 to 232 BCE. Ashoka used the expressi ...

, had been rediscovered in 1896. Aniruddha built a monastery and a rest house, and extended assistance to pilgrims. In 1967, Aniruddha received the then

UN Secretary-General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-ge ...

U Thant Thant (; ; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held t ...

during his visit to Lumbini which led to the formulation of the Lumbini Development Master Plan. Aniruddha spent 46 years in Lumbini and returned to Kathmandu in 1991 to become the abbot of Ananda Kuti Vihar at Swayambhu. He has translated Buddhists texts from Sinhala and Burmese into Nepal Bhasa and written and published 21 books.Bajracharya, Phanindra Ratna (2003). ''Who's Who in Nepal Bhasha.'' Kathmandu: Nepal Bhasa Academy. . Page 50.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aniruddha Mahathera 1915 births 2003 deaths People from Kathmandu Theravada Buddhist monks Nepalese Buddhist monks Nepalese Theravada Buddhists Theravada Buddhism writers Nepalese male writers Newar-language writers Nepalese journalists Nepal Bhasa movement Nepalese monks Newar people Nepalese expatriates in Sri Lanka Nepalese expatriates in India Nepalese expatriates in Myanmar 20th-century journalists 20th-century Buddhist monks