Nyanaponika Thera or Nyanaponika Mahathera (July 21, 1901 – 19 October 1994)[1] was a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist monk and scholar who, after ordaining in Sri Lanka, later became the co-founder of the Buddhist Publication Society and author of numerous seminal books and articles on Theravada Buddhism.

[2] Nyanaponika Thera was born in Hanau, Germany on July 21, 1901, as Siegmund Feniger, the only child of a Jewish family.

Having arranged for his mother to stay in Vienna, in early 1936 he finally was able to leave Europe for Sri Lanka, where he joined Ven.

Nyanaponika's and Nyanatiloka's internment was first at Diyatalawa Army Cantonment in Sri Lanka, and later at Dehra Dun in northern India.

Nyanaponika Thera completed German translations of the Sutta Nipata, the Dhammasangani (the first book of the Abhidhamma Pitaka), and its commentary.

In 1952, both Venerable Nyanatiloka Mahathera and Nyanaponika Thera were invited by the Burmese (Myanmar) Government to be consultants to the Sixth Buddhist Council, to be convened in 1954 to re-edit and reprint the entire Pali Canon and its commentaries.

On May 28, 1957, the great pioneering scholar monk died, and he was accorded a State Funeral at Independence Square, Colombo, attended by the Prime Minister S.W.R.D.

Nyanatiloka Mahathera's German translation of the complete Anguttara Nikaya, retyping the five volumes in full by himself, and also compiling a forty-page Index to the work.

Devoting his time and energy to the publications of the BPS, Nyanaponika Thera wrote tracts, encouraged others to write, collated and translated suttas, and had them published.

In addition to his own writings, 200 Wheel titles and 100 Bodhi Leaves (booklets) - authored by numerous scholars - were issued during his editorship at the BPS.

In 1978, the German Oriental Society appointed him an honorary member, in recognition of his combination of objective scholarship with religious practice as a Buddhist monk.

In 1987, the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka at its first convocation, conferred on him its first ever Honoris Causa Degree of Doctor of Literature.

On October 19, 1994, the last day of his 58th Rains Retreat as a bhikkhu, he breathed his last in the pre-dawn quietude of the Udawattekelle forest hermitage.