President Pranab Mukherjee released postage stamp on Anagarika Dharmapala

President Pranab Mukherjee on 25 October 2014 released a commemorative postage stamp on Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Anagarika Dharmapala. Dharmapala is credited to have revived Buddhism in India in the 19th century.

Earlier, the Sri Lankan government released the commemorative postage stamp on 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda where the Sri Lankan government shared the idea of a postage stamp on Dharmapala.

Anagarika Dharmapala
•    Anagarika Dharmapala was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and was also a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India. He not only embraced Buddhism but also lent it Sinhalese nationalist character.
•    In 1891, Anagarika Dharmapala went on a pilgrimage to the Mahabodhi Temple at Bodh Gaya where Lord Buddha had attained enlightenment. He decided to work towards restoring its glory.
•    Accordingly, the Maha Bodhi Society at Colombo was founded in 1891. Dharmapala joined the Theosophical Society and spearheaded the reform and revival of Ceylonese Buddhism and its propagation.
•    In 1893 Dharmapala attended the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago as a representative of Southern Buddhism which was the term applied at that time to the Theravada. There he met Swami Vivekananda.
•    He later entered the order of Buddhist monks as Venerable Sri Devamitta Dharmapala and is considered a Bodhisattva in Sri Lanka. He was predestined as a bhikkhu at Sarnath in 1933 and died there in December 1933.