Kulatissa Nanda Jayatilleke (1 November 1920 – 23 July 1970) was an internationally recognised authority on Buddhist philosophy whose book Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge has been described as "an outstanding philosophical interpretation of the Buddha's teaching" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Biography Jayatilleke, was born on 1 November 1920, in Colombo, British Ceylon. After completing his secondary education at the Royal College in Colombo, he pursued the study of Pali and Sanskrit at the University of Ceylon obtaining a first class honours degree. He continued his education at Cambridge University with a view to acquire a firm grounding in Western philosophy. He obtained a unique training in Eastern and Western thought and an analytical approach to philosophy that provided him with a background that nourished his work throughout his career. Jayatilleke was a Nuffield Fellow in the Humanities, a Fellow of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences , Hay-Whitney-Fulbright Fellow, an editor of various philosophy journals, and was the Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ceylon, from 1963 until his death in 1970. Contributions Jayatilleke is best known as the author of the book Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, Perhaps the Greatest Book written by a Sri Lankan in the 20th Century a work that has been described as a "masterpiece", and as "an outstanding contribution to the history of Indian philosophy". This book traces the beginnings of ideas relating to the theory of knowledge in pre-Buddhist Indian thought and their development in early Buddhism. It consists of a comprehensive inquiry into the nature of knowledge and the questions relating to the means and limits of knowledge. The book attempts to work out a general methodology for answering questions that arise in the context of profound and sophisticated philosophical discussions, and attempts to show that the Buddha was an empiricist and verificationist who denied the meaningfulness of metaphysical utterances. Jayatilleke describes his book as an "attempt to uncover the epistemological foundations of Pali Canonical thought, from a new point of view and in the light of new material." His basic contentions were that early Buddhism has an empiricist outlook, gives a significant place to the analytic approach in philosophy, and does not contradict the findings of modern science. Jayatilleke was a student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and a teacher of the famous Buddhist scholar, David Kalupahana. Work Jayatilleke attempted to work out systematically