Preah Maha Ghosananda

He died in Northampton, Massachusetts on March 12, 2007.

The Dhammayietra became an annual walk which Maha Ghosananda led a number of times, despite the danger during the Khmer Rouge years. In 1995, the Dhammayietra consisted of almost 500 Cambodian Buddhist monks, nuns and precept-taking lay people. They were joined by The Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life. Together the two groups crossed Cambodia from the Thai border all the way to Vietnam, spending several days walking through Khmer Rouge-controlled territory along the way. For his teachings on non-violence and establishing Buddhist temples throughout the world that root his exiled people in their religion of peace, he was presented with the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award.

He had been called "the Gandhi of Cambodia." Maha Ghosananda was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the chair of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Claiborne Pell. He was again nominated in 1995, 1996, and 1997 for his work in bringing peace to Cambodia. He also acted as an adviser to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and resided part-time in the Palelai Buddhist Temple and Monastery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

In 1992, during the first year of the United Nations sponsored peace agreement, Maha Ghosananda led the first nationwide Dhammayietra, a peace march or pilgrimage, across Cambodia in an effort to begin restoring the hope and spirit of the Cambodian people.

In 1989, he returned full-time to Cambodia, taking up residence at Wat Sampeou Meas in Phnom Penh.

In 1988, Maha Ghosananda was elected as sanghreach (sangharaja) by a small gathering of exiled monks in Paris. He agreed to accept the position provisionally, until a complete, independent monastic hierarchy could be established in Cambodia. At the time, Venerable Tep Vong was the titular head of a unified Cambodian sangha, having been appointed to the position in 1981 by the Vietnamese-backed People's Republic of Kampuchea.

Maha Ghosananda served as a key figure in post-Communist Cambodia, helping to restore the nation state and to revive Cambodian Buddhism. In 1980, he served as a representative of the Cambodian nation-in-exile to the United Nations.

In 1980 Maha Ghosananda and the Reverend Peter L. Pond formed the Inter-Religious Mission for Peace in Cambodia. Together they located hundreds of surviving monks and nuns in Cambodia so that they could renew their vows and take leadership roles in Cambodian temples around the world. In June 1980 the Thai Government decided to forcibly repatriate thousands of refugees. Pond and the Preah Maha Ghosananda organized a protest against the forced repatriation of refugees from Sa Kaeo Refugee Camp.

When the Pol Pot regime collapsed in 1979, Maha Ghosananda was one of only 3,000 Cambodian Buddhist monks alive, out of more than 60,000 at the start of the reign of terror in 1976. Throughout 1979 Maha Ghosananda established wats in refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border, ordaining monks against the orders of the Thai military. He also founded more than 30 temples for Cambodian refugees living in Canada and the United States.

In 1978, Maha Ghosananda traveled to the refugee camps near the Thai-Cambodian border to begin ministering to the first refugees who filtered across the border.

In 1965, Maha Ghosananda left India to study meditation under Ajahn Dhammadaro, a famous meditation master of the Thai Forest Tradition. He remained with Ajahn Dhammadaro at his forest hermitage in southern Thailand, Wat Chai Na (located near Nakhon Si Thammarat),for eleven years.

Maha Ghosananda (full title Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda - Khmer: សម្តេចព្រះមហាឃោសានន្ទ; Pali: Mahāghosānanda; May 23, 1913 – March 12, 2007) was a highly revered Cambodian Buddhist monk in the Theravada tradition, who served as the Patriarch (Sangharaja) of Cambodian Buddhism during the Khmer Rouge period and post-communist transition period of Cambodian history. His Pali monastic name, 'Mahā Ghosānanda', means "great joyful proclaimer". He was well known in Cambodia for his annual peace marches.

He was born Va Yav in Takéo Province, Cambodia in 1913 to a farming family in the Mekong Delta plains. From an early age he showed great interest in religion, and began to serve as a temple boy at the age of eight years old. He was greatly impressed by the monks with whom he served, and at age fourteen received novice ordination. He studied Pali scriptures in the local temple high school, then went on to complete his higher education at the monastic universities in Phnom Penh and Battambang.