Photograph of Anagarika Dharmapala statue

Object location: Living room

This statue of Anagarika Dharmapala stands in front of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy, Sri Lanka. After moving to Adhisthana in 2013, Sangharakshita asked for this gold-framed photo to be hung on the wall in his living room. Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) by birth, Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933) was the first Buddhist to ‘girdle the globe with the Master’s Message’, visiting Japan, Burma, America, Canada, England, France, Italy and Germany. In India he founded the Maha Bodhi Society and fought long and hard for the restoration of the Maha Bodhi temple at Bodh Gaya. He was said to be both an activist and a yogi, deeply committed to spiritual life, as well as to individual and social change. In 1953, Sangharakshita spent several weeks at the Maha Bodhi headquarters in Calcutta immersed in writing a biographical sketch of Anagarika Dharmapala whom he regarded as

the greatest ‘Buddhist missionary’ of our times and, next to Dr B. R. Ambedkar, the man most responsible for the revival of Buddhism in modern India.

Preface to Flame in Darkness, Triratna Grantha Mala, Pune 1980, p.9.