Pahalawattage Premasiri
Bio
Pahalawattage Don Premasiri is a senior professor of Pali and Buddhist Studies of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He is the founding president of the Society for the Integration of Science and Human Values of the Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies, which is the only society in Sri Lanka in the Local Societies Initiative program. Prof. Premasiri obtained his bachelorï¾’s degree from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1963, and joined the academic staff of the same university immediately after graduation. He obtained a second bachelorï¾’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, UK in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Comparative Philosophy from the University of Hawaii USA in 1980. Prof. Premasiri has numerous papers published in the area of Buddhist Ethics, Buddhist Philosophy, Buddhist Psychology and Buddhism in relation to current socio-political issues. He has contributed over ten articles to the Encyclopedia of Buddhism published in Sri Lanka and numerous scholarly articles to national and international journals. The Department of Pali and Buddhist Studies published a collection of his papers in 2006 under the title Studies in Buddhist Philosophy and Religion. Prof. Premasiri has taught Buddhism and philosophy in a number of universities and educational institutes outside Sri Lanka. His specialty is in Buddhist ethics and early Buddhist philosophy as represented in the Pali Buddhist literary tradition.