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.
Early life
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.
Education
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.
Academic career
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 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 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.