evidence: Most Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero the founder of Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery The Most Venerable Kiribathgoda Gnānānanda Thero is the founder of Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery. The Venerable Thero was born into a Catholic family, and at the age of six months, his whole family embraced Buddhism. At the age of seventeen, he was ordained at Seruwila Mangala Raja Maha Vihara under the preceptorship of the Most Venerable Dambagasare Sumedhankara Mahā Thero who was the Chief of Sri Kalyaniwansa Nikāya and the Abbot of Seruwila Mangala Raja Maha Vihara at the time. After a traditional Sri Lankan monastic education, while studying for the Sinhala Honours Degree at Sri Jayawardhanapura University, he had an unexpected opportunity to read the Buddha’s discourses in the Pāli Canon; because of this, he abandoned temple life and began to frequent forest monasteries and hermitages, offering his life to the Dhamma with a great desire to practice it. [...] I started a Dhamma service with the name of ‘Mahamewnawa’ in 1999, as a memorial service gift for the noble mission of Arahant Mahinda Thero. When we began preaching the lucid Dhamma of the Buddha, intelligent groups from all over the Island gathered around us with an improved interest in this ultimate truth. We encourage fondness in only the right truth that the Buddha perseveringly revealed to us. If someone respects and worships the Dhamma, develops a perspective of life following the Dhamma, and truly lives according to the Dhamma, then it will be enough for the disciple desiring truth, to find the truth.