Lokanatha was born near Naples in Cervinara, Italy in 1897 in the celebrated family of Cioffi and given the name of Salvatore, meaning the Savior.
He then worked as a chemical analyst for the Crucible Steel Co. and Procter & Gamble before briefly attending Columbia University Medical School.
Returning home after mastering the precepts and practices of Buddhism in six months, he found the general atmosphere not favorable to his new religion in Italy.
He returned to India on foot walking across Southern Europe and Asia Minor, reaching back Burma in 1928.
The five years that followed were spent in deep study and meditations, his time being divided between monasteries and the Himalayan caves and forests.
From the year 1928 throughout his life he observed the self-imposed rule of sleeping in the sitting posture: only in his death he lay on his back.
Three Buddhist missionary expeditions were launched by Lokanatha in the years 1933, 1934 and 1935 from Burma, Thailand and Ceylon respectively to Bodh Gaya in India, where the Buddha had attained Enlightenment.
Preaching through Singapore and Malaya, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Manila, he sped across the Pacific through Hawaii to the US, and after a very successful tour of the United States and preaching in England and on the Continent, he arrived in Ceylon in 1950 to attend and address the First Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists.