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Monk and the Prime Minister: How Ven Nyanaponika influenced Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel
June 26, 2023 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Monk and the Prime Minister: How Ven Nyanaponika Influenced Ben-Gurion, the First Prime Minister of Israel
by
Dr Punsara Amarasinghe
Post Doctoral Researcher, Sant Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
Hony. Joint Secretary, RASSL
on Monday, 26th June 2023
at 5.00 p.m.
at the Council Room of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka
96, Ananda Coomaraswamy Mawatha, Colombo 7
All are Welcome
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 814 7119 9391
Passcode: 090441
YouTube Live
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Lecture Medium – English
Between the years 1956 and 1962 the Buddhist monk Nyanaponika Thera and the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion have met and exchanged numerous letters. Their correspondence, which is now being kept in the custody of Hebrew University Jerusalem, is published here for the first time and reveals the nature of their unique intellectual relationship. It shows that the Israeli Prime Minister was interested in Buddhist matters above and beyond what is usually acknowledged in Israel’s historiography, and that Nyanaponika was actively seeking involvement in place due to rather mundane circumstances that are described in the letters themselves. The letters unveil the initial efforts made by a German Jewish monk residing in Ceylon to propagate Buddhism to Israel and also these letters trace the importance of Sri Lanka as the core of Theravada Buddhism.