death_date death_place religion birth_place teacher color nationality title article_title background birth_date school name alma_mater
12 december 2003 saint petersburg , russia theravada buddhism gangodawila , sri lanka -rrb- madihe pannaseeha thero black sri lanka sri lankan chief -lrb- australia -rrb- incumbent of -lsb- http://www.vihara.org.au/t7/ buddhist temple victoria -rsb- gangodawila soma thero
 #ffd 068 24 april 1948 amarapura nikaya gangodawila ඩව ල ස ම හ ම soma thero si ප ජ ය ග ග isipathana college
gangodawila soma thero

gangodawila soma thero -lrb- 24 april 1948 -- 12 december 2003 -rrb- was a bhikkhu -lrb- buddhist monk -rrb- from sri lanka .
following tradition , he used the name of his birthplace , gangodawila , in front of his name ; thero is a term for an elder monk .
soma thero followed the example set by his teacher , madihe pannaseeha thero , and was both a learned monk and as a social reformer .
the cause of his death remains in dispute by some .
