Ven. Soma Thera (1898-1960) (Victor Emmanuel Perera Pulle) was educated at St. Benedict's College in Kotahena. After traveling widely in Burma, Thailand, China, and Japan, studying and translating Buddhist texts, he returned to Burma where he was ordained in 1936. He was a member of the Buddhist Mission of Goodwill to India in 1940, and the Buddhist mission to China in 1946. In 1946 he led the first Buddhist mission to Germany. He died suddenly of pulmonary thrombosis in 1960.