death_date religion birth_place color nationality article_title lineage native_name background birth_date image school education name
02 october 1983 buddhism kotahena , colombo , sri lanka black sri lanka sri lankan narada maha thera
 amarapura sect න රද මහ ස ථව රයන වහන ස #ffd 068 14 july 1898 portrait -rrb- . jpg of most venerable narada maha thera -lrb- 1898-1983 theravada st. benedict 's college , ceylon university college narada maha thera
narada maha thera

the venerable narada maha thera -lrb- sinhala : න රද මහ ස ථව රයන වහන ස -rrb- , born sumanapala perera -lrb- 14 july 1898 -- 2 october 1983 -rrb- was a theravadan buddhist monk and translator , the superior of vajirarama temple in colombo .
he was a popular figure in his native country , sri lanka , and beyond .
he was born in kotahena , colombo to a middle-class family , educated at st. benedict 's college and ceylon university college , and ordained at the age of eighteen .
in 1929 he represented sri lanka at the opening ceremony for the new mulagandhakuti vihara monastery at sarnath , india , and in 1934 he visited indonesia , the first theravadan monk to do so in more than 450 years .
during this opportunity he planted and blessed a bodhi tree in southeastern side of borobudur on 10th march 1934 , and some upasakas were ordained as monks .
from that point on he travelled to many countries to conduct missionary work : taiwan , cambodia , laos , south vietnam , singapore , japan , nepal , and australia .
in 1956 , he visited the united kingdom and the united states , and addressed a huge crowd at the washington monument .
on 2 november 1960 narada maha thera brought a bodhi tree to the south vietnamese temple thích ca phật Đài , and made many visits to the country during the 1960s .
along with others -lrb- such as piyadassi maha thera -rrb- he contributed to the popularization of the `` bana '' style dharma talk in the 1960s and brought the buddhist teachings `` to the day-to-day lives of the westernized middle class in sri lanka . ''
