Lama Anagarika Govinda

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Lama Anagarika Govinda (born Ernst Lothar Hoffman on May 17, 1898; died January 14, 1985) was the founder of the Pali Tibetan Buddhist order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala and an expositor of Tibetan Buddhism.

He was born in Waldheim, Germany, the son of a German father and a Bolivian mother. After spending two years in the German army during World War I, he caught tuberculosis and was discharged. He lived on Capri in Italy from 1920 until 1928, where he became interested in Buddhism. He then moved to Sri Lanka and became a Buddhist monk of the Theravadic tradition. From 1931 he embraced teachings of Tibetan Buddhism and after founding his order in 1933 he lived for three decades in Almora in northern India. As a German by birth, Govinda was interned by the British army during World War II. In 1947 he married a Persian speaking photographer Li Gotami and travelled to Tibet. In the 1960s he began travelling around the world to lecture on Buddhism, and settled in the San Francisco Bay area in his twilight years, where he was hosted for a time by Alan Watts.

[edit] Works

• Psycho-Cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stupa (1940), Dharma Publishing 1976 edition: ISBN 0-913546-36-4
• Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (1959), London: Rider, Weiser Books 1969 edition, ISBN 0-87728-064-9
• The Way of the White Clouds (1966), London: Hutchinson, Shambhala 1988 edition: ISBN 0-87773-462-3, reprint: ISBN 0-87773-007-5, Overlook hardcover: ISBN 1-58567-465-6, Overlook paperback: ISBN 1-58567-785-X, Ebury: ISBN 0-7126-5543-3
• The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy (1969), Motilal Banarsidass Publisher, 1992 hardcover: ISBN 81-208-0941-6, 1998 edition: ISBN 81-208-0952-1
• Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness (1976) London: Allen and Unwin
• The Inner Structure of the I Ching, the Book of Transformation (1981), Art Media Resources, ISBN 0-8348-0165-5
• A Living Buddhism for the West (1990), Shambhala, ISBN 0-87773-509-3
• Insights of a Himalayan Pilgrim (1991)
• Ken Winkler, 1000 Journeys: The Biography of Lama Anagarika Govinda (1990), Element Books, ISBN 1-85230-149-X
• Buddhist Reflections (1994), Motilal Banarsidass Publisher, ISBN 81-208-1169-0 (collected essays)

[edit] External links

• Lama Anagarika Govinda, 1898-1985, biography.
• Lama Anagarika Govinda, brief bio sketch.