Anagarika Govinda
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Lama Anagarika Govinda |
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| Born |
Ernst Lothar Hoffmann 17 May 1898 Waldheim, Saxony, German Empire |
| Died | 14 January 1985 (aged 86) Mill Valley, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Lama Govinda |
| Citizenship |
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| Spouse(s) | Li Gotami Govinda (m. 1947; his death 1985) |
Anagarika Govinda (born Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, 17 May 1898 – 14 January 1985) was the founder of the order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala and an expositor of Tibetan Buddhism, Abhidharma, and Buddhist meditation as well as other aspects of Buddhism. He was also a painter and poet.
Ernst Lothar Hoffmann was born in Waldheim, Germany, the son of a German father and a Bolivian mother. His father was quite well to do and owned a cigar factory. His mother died when he was three years old. While enrolled in the German army during World War I, he caught tuberculosis in Italy and was discharged. He recovered at a sanatorium and then studied philosophy, psychology and archaeology at Freiburg University. He did not finish his studies, but went to live in a German art colony on Capri in Italy, as a painter and poet. He studied at the Universities of Naples and Cagliari and made archeological research journeys in North Africa. He lived on Capri from 1920 until 1928. During his time in Italy Hoffman became familiar with the work of German life-philosopher Ludwig Klages whose biocentric metaphysics greatly fascinated him and influenced his approach to and understanding of Buddhism. Already at the age of 16 he started to study philosophy and by way of Schopenhauer he encountered Buddhism. After having made a comparative study of the major religions, he became a convinced Buddhist at the age of 18. He joined the Bund für buddhistisches Leben (Association for Buddhist Living). On Capri he practiced meditation with an American Buddhist friend.
In December 1928, Hoffman moved from Capri to Sri Lanka and stayed as a celibate Buddhist layman (brahmacāri), and later as a celibate, homeless layman (anagarika), for nine weeks at the Island Hermitage with Nyanatiloka Thera, a teacher and scholar in the Theravada tradition. He was instrumental in founding the International Buddhist Union (IBU) in 1929, of which he made Nyanatiloka the president. The aim of the IBU was to unite all Buddhists worldwide and to promote Buddhism through the virtuous and exemplary conduct of practising Buddhists. As secretary of the IBU, he travelled to Burma and Europe to raise support. Although he came to Sri Lanka with the aim of becoming a Buddhist monk, he was discouraged to do so by Anagarika Dharmapala on the grounds that it would be difficult to travel as a Buddhist monk. In 1930 he founded the Variyagoda Hermitage in a tea-estate in the mountains near Gampola, but he only lived there for one year with his German stepmother Anne Habermann who had come with him from Europe. At Variyagoda Govinda studied Abhidhamma and Pali.
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