Professor Mahinda Deegalle

Mahinda Deegalle is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London.

He is also a Professor Emeritus in the Study of Religions, Philosophies, and Ethics at Bath Spa University. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge.

Professor Deegalle is a graduate of Harvard University, the University of Chicago and University of Peradeniya. He has held Numata Visiting Professorship in Buddhist Studies at McGill University, Canada and NEH Professorship in Humanities at Colgate University, USA. He has conducted post-doctoral research at Kyoto University, Aichi Gakuin University and International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies (Japan) under the auspices of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai.

He is the author of Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka (SUNY 2006) and editor of Philosophy, Ethics and Buddhist Practice (Buddhist World Press 2023), Dharmayātra (NUVIS 2022), Justice and Statecraft: Buddhist Ideals Inspiring Contemporary World (Nagananda International Buddhist University 2017), Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka (Routledge 2006), Dharma to the UK (World Buddhist Foundation 2008), Vesak, Peace and Harmony: Thinking of Buddhist Heritage (Nagananda International Buddhist University 2015) and co-editor of Pali Buddhism (Curzon 1996) and Buddhism and International Humanitarian Law (Routledge 2024).  He has edited two translations in Sinhala (2003) and Tamil (2005) on Buddhism and Conflict in Sri Lanka. He was the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Buddhist-Christian Studies.

Professor Deegalle regularly appears in BBC1 The Big Questions, BBC World Service, Aljazeera, and Buddhist TV programmes.  He has conducted fieldwork in Sri Lanka, Japan, Korea and China.  His research concentrates on Ethics of War and Violence, Minority Issues in Pluralist Societies, Religious Extremism, Buddhism and Politics, IHL, Interreligious Dialogue, Religious Conversions, Asceticism in Japan, Buddhism in the West, Pilgrimage and Buddhist Rituals, Preaching Traditions, Tripitaka Translations and Palm-leaf Manuscript Collections in South and Southeast Asia.