Aniruddha Mahathera was a Nepalese Buddhist monk and the Sangha Nayak of Nepal from 1998 until his death in 2003.
Background
Aniruddha (alternative name: Aniruddha Mahasthavir) was born at Asan Dhalasikwa, Kathmandu to father Das Ratna and mother Dibya Laxmi Tuladhar. His father engaged in trade in Tibet before becoming a Buddhist monk taking up the name Dhammalok Mahasthavir.
Career
He was named Gaja Ratna Tuladhar and belonged to a merchant family with a business house in Lhasa, Tibet. Gaja Ratna was eight years old when his father Das Ratna took him along to Lhasa in 1923 as his mother had died and he couldn"t be left behind in Kathmandu. Returning from Tibet, he was enrolled at Central Hindu Boarding School in Varanasi.
In 1925, Gaja Ratna came back to Kathmandu.
Gaja Ratna accompanied his father to Kolkata on another business trip. After spending five years in Sri Lanka and becoming proficient in Sinhala, Pali, Sanskrit and English, he went to Kusinagar, India.
A year later in 1937, he received higher ordination in Moulmein. In the midst of his study, World World War II came to Burma, and he had to keep moving to escape the fighting.
Later, he moved to Lumbini and dedicated himself to developing it as a place of pilgrimage.
Lumbini was then a vacant patch surrounded by jungle. The spot, marked by an Ashokan pillar, had been rediscovered in 1896. Aniruddha built a monastery and a rest house, and extended assistance to pilgrims.
In 1967, Aniruddha received the then United Nations Secretary-General U Thant during his visit to Lumbini which led to the formulation of the Lumbini Development Master Plan.
Aniruddha spent 46 years in Lumbini and returned to Kathmandu in 1991 to become the abbot of Ananda Kuti Vihar at Swayambhu.