With the cessation of war, the two bhikkhus were released from internment at Dehra Dun. They returned to Sri Lanka in 1946 and resided at the Island Hermitage, Dodanduwa. In early 1951 Sri Lanka granted citizenship to both of them. With advancing age Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera wished to leave the hot and stuffy sea-coast climate of Dodanduwa, and in 1946 he was offered a hermitage in the Udawattekelle Forest Reserve in Kandy, which has a cooler climate. The following year Ven. Nyanaponika Thera joined him at the new Kandy Hermitage. In 1952, both Venerable Nyanatiloka Mahathera and Nyanaponika Thera were invited by the Burmese (Myanmar) Government to be consultants to the
Sixth Buddhist Council, to be convened in 1954 to re-edit and reprint the entire Pali Canon and its commentaries. After their work with the council was completed, Ven. Nyanaponika Thera stayed in Burma for a period of training in
Vipassanā (Insight Meditation) under the meditation teacher
Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw Thera. The experience he gathered motivated him to write his best-known work,
The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, published by the Buddhist Publication Society. This work was reprinted in many editions, and was translated into more languages. In 1954, the teacher and the pupil returned to Burma for the opening ceremonies of the Sixth Buddhist Council, which was held in a cave-like structure built similar to the Sattaprani Caves in Rajagaha (Rajgir), India, where the First Buddhist Council had been held. For the closing ceremonies in 1956 Ven. Nyanaponika Thera went to Burma alone, as his teacher Nyanatiloka Mahathera was indisposed at that time. In 1957, the health of Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera deteriorated, and he moved to Colombo for easy and ready medical attention. On May 28, 1957, the great pioneering scholar monk died, and he was accorded a State Funeral at Independence Square, Colombo, attended by the Prime Minister
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, many State officials, and both the laity and religious dignitaries and prelates of all Nikayas. His ashes were enshrined at the Polgasduwa Island Hermitage, Dodanduwa, and a tombstone was built to perpetuate his memory. Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, thereafter dutifully honoring the request of his teacher, revised Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera's German translation of the complete
Anguttara Nikaya, retyping the five volumes in full by himself, and also compiling a forty-page
Index to the work. Six months after the death of his teacher, the career of Ven. Nyanaponika Thera was to be launched in a new direction, a permanent contribution to the spread of Buddhism worldwide. A.S. Karunaratne (a prominent lawyer in Kandy, who was Mayor of Kandy in 1945) suggested to his friend Richard Abeysekera (d. August 1982) (
Trinity College teacher in retirement), that they start a society for the publication of Buddhist literature in English, mainly to be distributed abroad. The unanimous decision was that Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, in the Udawattekelle Forest Reserve Aramaya, would be the best director of the institution. Thus, on January 1, 1958, the
Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) was born. Devoting his time and energy to the publications of the BPS, Nyanaponika Thera wrote tracts, encouraged others to write, collated and translated suttas, and had them published. In addition to his own writings, 200
Wheel titles and 100
Bodhi Leaves (booklets) - authored by numerous scholars - were issued during his editorship at the BPS. Ven. Nyanaponika Thera's biography is completely submerged in his writings. With advancing age having a heavy toll on his strength, in 1984 he retired as editor of BPS, and in 1988 he retired as president, ending his career there with recognition as a Distinguished Patron of BPS. His fame as an exponent of authentic Theravada Buddhism reached all corners of the globe. In 1978, the German Oriental Society appointed him an honorary member, in recognition of his combination of objective scholarship with religious practice as a Buddhist monk. In 1987, the Buddhist and Pali
University of Sri Lanka at its first convocation, conferred on him its first ever
Honoris Causa Degree of Doctor of Literature. In 1990, he received the Honoris Causa Degree of Doctor of Letters from the
University of Peradeniya. In 1993, The Amarapura Maha Sangha Sabha, to which he belonged for 56 years, conferred on him the honorary title of Amarapura Maha Mahopadhyaya Sasana Sobhana (The Great Mentor of the Amarapura Maha Sasana Sabha, Ornament of Teaching). His last birthday (which fell on July 21, 1994) was celebrated by his friends and the BPS staff with the release of the BPS edition of his book
The Vision of Dhamma, a collection of his writings from the
Wheel and
Bodhi Leaves series. On October 19, 1994, the last day of his 58th Rains Retreat as a bhikkhu, he died in the pre-dawn quietude of the Udawattekelle forest hermitage. ==Selected publications==