Maha Ghosananda, 81; Cambodian Buddhist leader, Nobel nominee
Maha Ghosananda, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated monk who rebuilt Buddhism in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, died Monday at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., said Christina Trinchero, a hospital spokeswoman. Trinchero did not know the cause of death.
Non Nget, a senior Buddhist patriarch in Cambodia who had known Ghosananda since childhood, said he was 81.
A native of Cambodia, Ghosananda lived in exile from 1975 to 1979, when the Khmer Rouge denounced Buddhism and killed nearly 2 million people through starvation, disease, overwork and execution.
Ghosananda was one of the first monks to return to Cambodia and train new Buddhist leaders after Pol Pot’s regime was toppled by the Vietnamese in 1979.
He was elected a Supreme Cambodian Buddhist Patriarch by fellow Buddhist monks in 1988 for restoring Buddhism in the war-torn country.
During the 1990s, he led the Dhamma Yatra movement to rebuild religious life in Cambodia.
He moved to western Massachusetts in the late 1980s at the invitation of a Buddhist order in Leverett, Mass.
He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times in the mid-1990s.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
