Abaya Lakdasa Dissanayaka was born in Colombo on 19 February 1946. He was the third child and only son of Samuel Arthur Dissanayaka, the Inspector General of Police to Sri Lanka, and Phyllis Trcherne, née Dickman. He was educated at the Royal College, Colombo, and studied medicine at the medical faculty of the University of Sri Lanka, where he graduated in 1969. While in Sri Lanka he was commissioned as a Surgeon-Lieutenant in the naval force and was appointed as an extra ADC to the President of Sri Lanka. He was also honorary surgeon to the Sri Lanka rugby football team. He took the primary FRCS in Colombo and was awarded the Hallett Prize in 1972. Following appointments in Sri Lanka he obtained a Commonwealth scholarship in September 1975 and so proceeded to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Here he was considerably influenced by Clifford Naunton Morgan. He obtained the FRCS Edinburgh in 1976 and the English Fellowship in 1977. He returned to Sri Lanka as consulting surgeon to the Cancer Hospital. In 1972 he had married Dr Savistri Dantanarayana by whom he had one son. In 1975 she developed a brain tumour from which she died. Abaya then married Cynthia. He died in a tragic accident: he was drowned at sea on 14 January 1990, while trying to save the lives of two children, just five weeks before his 44th birthday. He was survived by his wife Cynthia.