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David J. Kalupahana | |
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| Born | 1936 (1936) |
| Died | January 15, 2014(2014-01-15) (aged 77–78) Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of London,University of Peradeniya,Mahinda College,Galle |
| Spouse | Indrani Kalupahana |
| Children | Nandana Kalupahana Dimati Kalupahana Milinda Kalupahana |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Philosophy,Buddhist Studies |
| Institutions | University of Hawaii |
| Doctoral advisor | K. N. Jayatilleke |
| Notable students | P. D. Premasiri |
David J. Kalupahana (1936–2014) was aBuddhist scholar fromSri Lanka. He was a student of the lateK.N. Jayatilleke, who was a student ofWittgenstein. He wrote mainly aboutepistemology, theory of language, and compared later Buddhist philosophical texts against the earliest texts and tried to present interpretations that were both historically contextualised and also compatible with the earliest texts, and in doing so, he encouraged Theravada Buddhists and scholars to reevaluate the legitimacy of later, Mahayana texts and consider them more sympathetically.
Born inGalle District, SouthernSri Lanka, Kalupahana attendedMahinda College,Galle for his school education.[1] He obtained his BA (Sri Lanka, 1959), Ph.D (London), and D. Litt (Hon.Peradeniya, Sri Lanka). He was Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at theUniversity of Hawaii. He was assistant lecturer in Pali and Buddhist Civilization at theUniversity of Ceylon, and studied Chinese and Tibetan at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies at theUniversity of London where he completed a Ph.D. dissertation on the problem of causality in the PaliNikayas and ChineseAgamas in 1966.
He left theUniversity of Ceylon (1972) to join theUniversity of Hawaii, serving as the Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Chairman of the Graduate Field in Philosophy (1974–80). He directed international intra-religious conferences on Buddhism, and on Buddhism and Peace.
Many of his books are published and widely available in India (by Motilal Banarsidass and others), and therefore presumably have a fairly significant influence on the fields of Buddhism and Buddhist Studies in India and other nearby South Asian countries, such as his native Sri Lanka.
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