THE BODHI MIRROR


INTRODUCING THE EMINENT DHARMA MASTER

VENERABLE BHIKKHU ARYAMITRA MAHATHERA

      The Venerable Aryamitra Mahathera is a leading figure in the Buddhist revival in Tripura State, India. Born in 1901 in Nanupur, Chittagong District, Bengal, he joined Government Service in 1926, but later gave up his position to study Yoga and Vedanta in a Hindu Ashram, Chandannagar, West Bengal. In 1937 he was ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Dharmankur Vihar in Calcutta. After his ordination he proceeded to Ceylon in 1938 in order to study under the German Buddhist monk, the Venerable Nyanatiloka Mahathera in Island  Heritage, Dodanduwa, South Ceylon. When the Venerable Nyanatiloka was interned by the then British Government of Ceylon in 1941, Aryamitra became an associate of Aggamahapandita Polvatte Buddhadatta Thera, one of the most learned monks in Ceylon.

      Bhikkhu Aryamitra took part in the forming of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in 1950 in Colombo. While he was in Ceylon he was awarded the 'Dharma Kirthi Charitable Trust Scholarship' administered by the Public Trustee, Government of Ceylon, granting him five years of research and study in Pali Buddhism.

  In 1952 he returned to India and became the head of the Venuvana-Vihara in Agartala the Temple built by His Gracious Maharaja of Tripura State. In the capacity of President of Tripura Rajya Buddhist Association, he became the head of all Bhikkhus in Tripura. He has traveled in almost all the Southeast Asian countries, and is one of the members of the World Fellowship of Buddhists general council and the president of the Tripura World Fellowship of Buddhists Regional Center.

(Reference: "Contemporary Buddhism in Bengal and Tripura" by Dr. Heinz Bechert of Gottingen University, West Germany in Educational Miscellany. Vol. IV. No.3&4, December 1967-Marah 1968. World Fellowship of Buddhists New

Bulletin (Bangkok) Vol. 1 No. (Nov-Dec 1964, pp.47: "A Living Force in the Buddhist World."