spread the Dhamma. Asoka also founded the influential meditation monastery Nissarana Vanaya. Since the Buddhist revival, Sri Lanka has also been an important centre of Buddhist scholarship in Western languages. One of the first western bhikkhus, the German Nyanatiloka Mahathera, studied in Sri Lanka, established the Island Hermitage there and ordained several western monks. Western monks who studied in the island hermitage such as Nanamoli Bhikkhu and Ven. Nyanaponika (who worked in the Buddhist Publication Society along with Bhikkhu Bodhi) were responsible for many important translations of the Pali Canon and other texts on Buddhism into English and German. Post-Colonial Buddhism and politics In 1948 Sri Lanka was granted self-rule (though it remained a Dominion of the British Empire until 1972) in a peaceful transfer of power. The negotiations with the British were led by D.S. Senanayake, the first prime minister of Sri Lanka who strongly believed in achieving independence through legal and constitutional means. Senanayake's UNP and his opponents in the left-wing parties all promoted the idea of Sri Lanka as a secular state with a plural multi-racial society. This alienated some of the ethnic Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists who believed Buddhism should have the status of state religion (which it had historically enjoyed) and that Sinhala should be the sole national language (this was seen as an equally important element of Sinhalese Buddhist culture). These nationalists were influenced by the idea (first articulated by Anagarika Dharmapala) that Sri Lanka was the holy land of Buddhism (the "Island of Dhamma", Dhammadipa) and that the Sinhalese were the noble protectors of Buddhism, while all other foreigners on the island were a corrupting and dangerous influence. The nationalists also saw the UNP elite as alienated from traditional Sinhalese culture. These Buddhist ethno-nationalists were consolidated under S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike's Freedom Party (SLFP), which defeated the UNP in 1956 on a nationalist and anti-Tamil platform. From the point of view of Buddhist monastics, the idea that Buddhist monks should be involved in politics was vigorously defended by the followers of Anagarika Dharmapala, and by monks such as Walpola Rahula, who wrote an influential book called Bhiksuvage Urumaya (The Heritage of the Bhikkhu) in 1946 defending the idea. Rahula draws from the Mahavamsa to argue that the Sinhala Buddhist monk had always been socio-politically engaged (in the past, this meant close ties with kings). He defends the politically engaged monk and argues that