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Thomas William Rhys Davids

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"THOMAS WILLIAM RHYS DAVIDS (1843-), British orientalist, was born at Colchester May 12 1843. Educated at a school in Brighton and at Breslau University he entered the Ceylon civil service in 1866 and also read for the bar, becoming a barrister of the Middle Temple in 1877. He became a close student of Buddhism and of the literatures of India, and in 1882 was appointed professor of Pali and Buddhist literature at University College, London. In 1904 he became professor of comparative religion at the university of Manchester. Amongst his numerous publications are Buddhism (1878, 18th ed. 1899); Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon (1877); Buddhist India (1902); Early Buddhism (1908); and the articles on Buddha, Buddhism, Pali, Lamaism, etc. in the E.B. He became president of the Pali Text Society, which he founded in 1882, and a fellow of the British Academy. He married in 1894 Caroline Augusta Foley, herself the author of Buddhist Psychology (1900), Psalms of the First Buddhist (1910) and other works.