P. D. Premasiri

Pahalawattage Don Premasiri (born 25 July 1941) is a Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar specializing in the areas of Buddhist ethics and Buddhist philosophy.

Premasiri's academic training represents a synthesis of both the Buddhist and Western philosophical traditions, first at the University of Peradeniya and subsequently at Cambridge and Hawaii.

He is currently president of the Buddhist Publication Society and professor emeritus in the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya.

P. D. Premasiri was born in Kotte, a suburb of Colombo, British Ceylon on July 25, 1941.

He received his primary and secondary education from Christian College, a boys' school in Kotte presently known as Sri Jayawardenepura Maha Vidyalaya.

Inspired by his father's talks on Buddhism, Premasiri started studying Pali at the age of 14.

He entered the University of Peradeniya in 1959 as a student in the Pali and Buddhist Civilization Department where he chose Pali as his subject of specialization.

At Peradeniya he studied under Buddhist scholars Venerable Professor Dhammavihari, W.S. Karunaratne, Lily de Silva, and David Kalupahana.

Although Premasiri was not enrolled in the philosophy department, he also audited a class under Philosophy Professor K.N. Jayatilleke with his permission.

In 1963, after receiving a B.A. in Pali with First Class Honours, Premasiri was invited to join the Peradeniya academic staff as a temporary assistant lecturer and was awarded an Oriental Studies scholarship to study abroad.

With encouragement from K.N. Jayatilleke, Premasiri traveled to the UK in 1965 and studied western ethics and philosophy at the University of Cambridge under notable British Philosophers such as Sir Bernard Williams.

While at Cambridge, a contemporary and friend to Premasiri was leading Buddhist scholar L.S. Cousins.

After earning a second B.A. and an M.A. in Western Philosophy at Cambridge, he returned to Peradeniya in 1968 and taught in both the Pali and Buddhist Civilization Department and the Department of Buddhist Philosophy.

In 1972 the two Buddhist studies departments at Peradeniya were uprooted during the Sri Lankan government's university reorganization.

Premasiri, along with several other professors, protested the reorganization and their petition resulted in the Department of Language and Cultural Studies, which would later become the renewed Pali and Buddhist Studies Department at Peradeniya.

In the aftermath of university reorganizing, Premasiri received an East-West Center Fellowship to study for his PhD at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

In 1977, he traveled to Hawaii and worked on his doctorate for three years under eminent philosophers David Kalupahana and Eliot Deutsch in the University of Hawaii's philosophy department.

In 1980, after receiving his PhD in Comparative Philosophy from Hawaii, he again returned to Peradeniya to continue teaching.

In the years following his return to the University of Peradeniya, Premasiri served in both the department of philosophy and the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies.

In 1988/89, a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program took him to Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he served as a visiting professor in the philosophy department.

Besides these organizational involvements, Premasiri has also conducted a Meditation and Pali Text Study Group in Kandy on a regular basis since 1994.

In 1997, Premasiri became head of the Pali and Buddhist Studies Department and served in this role until 2004, with a one-year research sabbatical in Norway.

In 1999, he served as a guest researcher in the department of philosophy at the University of Bergen, Norway.

In 2000, he served as guest researcher at the Department of Religion at the same university.

In 2004 he taught at Washington State University at Pullman in the philosophy department.

In 2006, Premasiri retired as the Pali and Buddhist Studies Department's Senior Professor, and in 2007 Premasiri was named professor emeritus at Peradeniya, where he continues to teach.

The beginnings of P.D. Premasiri's academic career as a lecturer and professor were intermingled with his pursuit for academic training.

Premasiri's academic career can be seen as a synthesis between Western academia and early Buddhist thought.

He combined the western and Buddhist intellectual traditions by teaching the fundamentals of early Buddhist thought with a western scholastic approach and by critiquing Western Philosophy from an early Buddhist perspective.

P.D. Premasiri's professional integrity can be understood by his focus on early Buddhist ethics in his writings and his continual commitment to preserving the Buddhist academic tradition at the University of Peradeniya.

Though he traveled to the U.K. and to the U.S. to receive academic training, he continually returned to the country of his birth and especially to the University of Peradeniya to serve and teach.

In the course of Premasiri's fifty-year academic career, he has published articles in a vast array of academic journals, contributed several entries to the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, and written essays and newsletters for the BPS.

He has presented and participated in academic institutions and conferences around the world, in countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, England, France, South Africa, India, Switzerland, and the US.

He has also served as guest faculty for a number of universities outside of Peradeniya.

In 2007 he taught at Colgate University Hamilton, New York in the Department of Religious Studies.

In 2009 he co-founded and was named director of academic affairs at SIBA, where he continues to teach and provide academic leadership for SIBA's Department of Buddhist Studies.

He has also taught at the Buddhist College in Singapore, Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore, and Thanghsian Institution in Malaysia.

Premasiri also serves on various non-profit boards.

He has been a long-time member of the board of management of the Buddhist Publication Society (PBS) in Kandy, Sri Lanka, and in 2011 succeeded Bhikkhu Bodhi as the 3rd president of the Buddhist Publication Society.

In addition to currently serving as president of BPS, he founded and currently serves as president for the Society for the Integration of Science and Human Values (SISHVA), and he is the president of the Sri Lanka Association for Buddhist Studies (SLABS).