 He obtained his primary education at Ranasinghe Premadasa Madhya Maha Vidyalaya at Hasalaka (farming hamlet in the salubrious Kandy District of Sri Lanka).Some claim that he was a survivor of the Aranthalawa Massacre on 2 June 1987 as Mahiyangane Dhammajothi Thero.After seeing the brutality of the Tiger massacre he pleaded with the chief Thero and left robes to join the Sri Lanka Army on 27 August 1987 with the blessings of his father S.G Babanis and mother S.G Juliet.