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    Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu Biography


    Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu    Ñāṇamoli Bhikkhu (born Osbert John S. Moore; 25 June 1905 – 8 March 1960) was a British Theravada Buddhist monk and translator of Pali literature.

    Born in Cambridge, Osbert was the only child of biologist John Edmund Sharrock Moore and Heloise Moore (née Salvin). He studied modern languages at Exeter College, Oxford.

    He helped a friend to run an antiques shop before joining the army at the outbreak of World War II, joining the anti-aircraft regiment before being transferred to the Intelligence Corps officer-cadet training camp. He was posted to a camp on the Isle of Man to help oversee Italian internees.

    In 1944 he was posted to Italy serving as an intelligence officer interrogating spies and saboteurs.

    During this period he discovered Buddhism via Julius Evola's The Doctrine of Awakening a Nietzschean interpretation of Buddhism. This work had been translated by his friend Harold Edward Musson, also an intelligence officer serving in Italy.

    After the war Moore joined the Italian section of the BBC. Moore and Musson, who shared a flat in London, were quite disillusioned with their lives and left for Sri Lanka in 1949 to become Buddhist monks.

    On 24 April 1949 they received the novice (samanera) ordination or going forth, pabbajjā, from Ñāṇatiloka1 at the Island Hermitage. In 1950 they received their bhikkhu ordination at Vajirarama Temple Colombo. Ñāṇamoli spent almost his entire monk life of eleven years at the Island Hermitage.

    After having been taught the basics of Pali by Nyanatiloka Mahathera, Ñāṇamoli acquired a remarkable command of the Pali language and a wide knowledge of the canonical scriptures within a comparatively short time.

    He is remembered for his reliable translations from the Pali into English, mostly of abstruse texts such as the Nettippakaraṇa2 which are considered difficult to translate. He also wrote essays on aspects of Buddhism.

    By 1956 he had translated Visuddhimagga3 into English and got it published as The Path of Purification.

    He also compiled The Life of the Buddha, a reliable and popular biography of the Buddha based on authentic records in the Pali Canon. His notes with his philosophical thoughts were compiled by Nyanaponika Thera and published as A Thinker's Note Book.

    His handwritten draft translation of the Majjhima Nikaya4 was typed out after his death and edited by Bhikkhu Khantipalo,5 and partly published as A Treasury of the Buddha's Discourses and then edited again by Bhikkhu Bodhi6 and published as Middle Length Length Discourse of the Buddha and published by Wisdom Publications in 1995.

    Other draft translations, edited and published after his death, are The Path of Discrimination (Paṭisambhidāmagga7) and Dispeller of Delusion (Sammohavinodanī8).

    While on a pilgrimage he died suddenly due to heart failure at the hamlet of Veheragama near Mahawa, a town in the North Western Province of Sri Lanka. His body was brought to Vajirarama Temple in Colombo and cremated at a nearby cemetery.

    Works

    Published by the Pali Text Society, London

    • Minor Readings and Illustrator. The Khuddakapāṭha and Commentary. Transl, from the Pali. 1960.
    • The Guide (Nettipakarana). Transl. from the Pali. 1962.
    • Piṭaka-Disclosure (Peṭakopadesa). Transl. from the Pali. 1964.
    • The Path of Discrimination (Patisambhidamagga). Transl. from the Pali, 1982.
    • Dispeller of Delusion (Sammohavinodanī). Transl. from the Pali. Revised by L.S. Cousins, Nyanaponika Thera and C.M.M. Shaw, 2 volumes, 1987, 1991.

    Published by the Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy

    • The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) by Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa. Translated from the Pali. First edition 1956. 3rd ed. 1991.
    • Mindfulness of Breathing (Ānāpānasati): Buddhist Texts from the Pali Canon and Extracts from the Pali Commentaries. First edition 1964. Fifth edition 1991.
    • The Life of the Buddha: as it appears in the Pali Canon, the oldest authentic record. (369 pp.) First printing 1972, fifth printing 2007.
    • The Practice of Loving-kindness (Mettā): as taught by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Compiled and translated 1958. Published in The Wheel No. 6/7. First printing 1958. Sixth reprint 2005.
    • A Pali-English Glossary of Buddhist Technical Terms. Edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi. First edition 1991. Second edition 2007.
    • Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha: Translation with Introduction and Notes. First printing 1960; third reprint 1981 as The Wheel No. 17.
    • Pathways of Buddhist Thought: Four Essays (from Posthumous papers). 1963, 1983.
    • The Three Refuges. 1959. (Bodhi Leaves No. A. 5).
    • “Anicca-Dukkha-Anatta. According to the Theravāda.” Three Essays in The Three Basic Facts of Existence (The Wheel Nos. 186/187, 191/193, 202/204), 1973–74.
    • A Thinker’s Notebook: Posthumous Papers of a Buddhist Monk. Compiled by Nyanaponika Thera. First edition 1972 (Forest Hermitage, Kandy). Second edition: 1980. Third edition, including Pathways of Buddhist Thought, and the previously unpublished essay 'The Sukkhavipassaka', 2008.

    Published by Mahamakuta Rajavidyalaya Press, Bangkok

    • The Pātimokkha. 227 Fundamental Rules of a Bhikkhu. Translated from the Pali. 1969.
    • A Treasury of the Buddha's Discourses. Compilation of Suttas from the Majjhima Nikaya. Edited by Bhikkhu Khantipalo, 1977.

    Published by Wisdom Publications, Boston

    • Middle Length Length Discourse of the Buddha Translated from the Pali. Edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi. 1995, 2005, 2009.


    Sources

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanamoli_Bhikkhu
    • https://obo.genaud.net/backmatter/gallery/bhk.nanamoli.htm

    Footnotes

    1. Nyanatiloka Mahathera (19 February 1878, Wiesbaden, Germany – 28 May 1957, Colombo, Ceylon), born as Anton Walther Florus Gueth, was one of the earliest westerners in modern times to become a Bhikkhu, a fully ordained Buddhist monk. He founded the Island Hermitage in 1911, located 105 kilometers south of Sri Lanka's principal city, Colombo.

    2. The Nettipakaraṇa (Pali, also called Nettippakarana, abbreviated Netti) is a mythological Buddhist scripture, sometimes included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of Theravada Buddhism's Pali Canon. The main theme of this text is Buddhist Hermeneutics through a systematization of the Buddha's teachings. It is regarded as canonical by the Burmese Theravada tradition, but isn't included in other Theravada canons.

    3. The Visuddhimagga (Pali; English: The Path of Purification), is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th Century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

    It is considered the most important Theravada text outside of the Tipitaka canon of scriptures and is described as "the hub of a complete and coherent method of exegesis of the Tipitaka," but it has also been criticized for its non-canonical departures, and its interpretation of dhyāna as concentration-meditation.

    4. The Majjhima Nikāya (-nikāya; "Collection of Middle-length Discourses") is a Buddhist scripture, the second of the five nikayas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka (lit. "Three Baskets") of Theravada Buddhism. Composed between 3rd century BCE and 2nd century CE. This nikaya consists of 152 discourses attributed to the Buddha and his chief disciples.

    5. Khantipalo, or Phra Khantipalo, (born Laurence Mills) is a Western Buddhist teacher and former Theravada monk. After thirty years as a Theravada monk, including extended periods as a forest hermit, he disrobed to pursue further research into Mahayana Buddhism, in particular the Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. In 1973 he established Wat Buddha Dhamma in New South Wales, and in 1991 he established the Bodhicitta Buddhist Centre in Queensland, Australia.

    6. Bhikkhu Bodhi (born December 10, 1944), born Jeffrey Block, is an American Theravada Buddhist monk, ordained in Sri Lanka and currently teaching in the New York and New Jersey area. He was appointed the second president of the Buddhist Publication Society and has edited and authored several publications grounded in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.

    7. The Patisambhidamagga (paṭisambhidā-; Pali for "path of discrimination"; sometimes called just Patisambhida) is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. It is included there as the twelfth book of the Sutta Pitaka's Khuddaka Nikaya. Tradition ascribes it to the Buddha's disciple Sariputta. It comprises 30 chapters on different topics, of which the first, on knowledge, makes up about a third of the book.

    8. Buddhaghoṣa's commentary on the Vibhaṇga, the second book of the Abhidharma Piṭaka.




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