The hardline Sri Lankan monk, who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.
Galagodate Gnanasara was sentenced on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.
Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time Gnanasara, who has been repeatedly accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.
The sentence handed down by the Colombo Magistrate's Court follows the presidential pardon he received in 2019. for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.
Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a media conference in 2016 where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.
On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, have the right to freedom of belief under the constitution.
He was also fined 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine will result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court's decision also said.
Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request by his lawyers to release him on bail pending a final decision on the appeal.
He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad after mass protests over the island nation's economic crisis in 2022.
During Rajapaksa's presidency, Gnanasara, who also heads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.
after Rajapaksa's oysterGnanasara was jailed last year on a similar charge related to hate speech against the country's Muslim minority, but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.
In 2018 he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is believed to have disappeared. However, he served only nine months of that sentence because he was pardoned by Maithripala Sirisena, who was the country's president at the time.