page_title: Island Hermitage
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Island Hermitage / History
context_page_description: Island Hermitage on Dodanduwa Island, Galle District, Sri Lanka is a famous Buddhist forest monastery founded by Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera in 1911. It is a secluded place for Buddhist monks to study and meditate in the Buddhist tradition. It also has an excellent English and German library.
  The Island Hermitage was the first centre of Theravāda Buddhist study and practice set up by and for Westerners. Its many prominent residents, monks and laymen, studied Theravada Buddhism and the Pali language, made translations of Pali scriptures, wrote books on Theravada Buddhism and practiced meditation. The Island Hermitage once formed an essential link with Theravāda Buddhism in the West.
  In 1951 Nyanatiloka moved to the Forest Hermitage in Kandy, then joined by Nyanaponika. Since 2003 the hermitage is run by a group of young Sri Lankan monks. Currently there is only one western monk who has been living here for about four years.
context_section_description: Among the early Western residents were the Venerables Vappo, Mahanama, Assaji and Bhaddiya. The founder dāyaka (lay supporter) was William Mendis Wijesekera. He and other lay supporters from around Dodanduwa conveyed alms-food and other requisites to the hermitage by boat every morning. In 1913 a dānasāla (refectory) was constructed.
  It was not until 1914 that the Island Polgasduwa actually came into the legal possession of the Sangha, when it was bought and donated by Ven. Nyanatiloka's Swiss supporter, Monsieur Bergier. Since that time, though interrupted by two world wars, Western as well as Sinhalese monks and laymen have lived, studied, practiced, and spread the Dhamma from the Island Hermitage.
  At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German monks were first permitted to stay at the Island Hermitage under surveillance. However, after four months, they were taken into civil internment in Sri Lanka and then sent to Australia. When Ven. Nyanatiloka was finally able to return to Sri Lanka in 1926, he found his beloved Island Hermitage in utter ruin and had to rebuild it anew.
  As soon as the restoration was completed and the hermitage was making progress again, the Second World War broke out in 1939. Ven. Nyanatiloka and his German disciples were again interned in camps, first in Sri Lanka and then in India. They were allowed to return in 1946. This time the Hermitage remained in a well preserved and in an even improved condition. It now included the adjacent small island of Metiduwa which had already been used for some time but was now officially donated by Lady Evadne de Silva, a long-time supporter of Ven. Nyanatiloka.
  A detailed account of the history of the Island Hermitage and the monks who lived on it can be found in The Life of Nyanatiloka Thera: The Biography of a Western Buddhist Pioneer, Bhikkhu Nyanatusita & Hellmuth Hecker, Kandy 2008.
caption: Nyanatiloka Maha Thera.
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