Shan State Buddhist University

Vision and Aim

In accordance with the motto of the University, bhāsaye jotaye dhammaṃ (the Visākha-sutta, AN 4.48 and SN 21.7, and the Mahāsutasoma-jātaka (No. 537)), ‘to dialogue and uphold the torch of Dhamma’, our vision is to create a vibrant, liberal Theravada institution for future generations. Our vision is informed by the establishment of large teaching institutions in South Asia more than one and half millennium ago. The famous Nālandā institution (the 5th – 12th centuries CE), along with four other big institutions—Vikramashila, Somapura, Odantapuri and Jaggadala—played a key role in contributing to the development of rich, diverse Buddhist scholarship, and in spreading the Dhamma to other parts of Asia and possibly beyond. These Buddhist institutions, which are often characterised as the earliest universities, had close intellectual connections and working relationship among themselves; they reached their peak under the Pala Dynasty, i.e. the 8th-12th centuries CE.

uddhist Sangha was among those to have set up the earliest universities in the world. Nalanda University (5th – 12th centuries) came into existence seven hundred years before Oxford University, the first to have been established in the English-speaking world and the third in the West. Nalanda was followed by four other big universities: Wickramashila University, Somapura University (now in Bangladesh and a world heritage site), Odantapuri University and Jaggadala University.

Those Buddhist universities had a close intellectual connection and working relationship with each other; they reached their peak under the Pala Dynasty (8th – 12th CE).

han State Buddhist University (SSBU) founded in 2014 by

Ven. Prof. Dr. K. Dhammasami (DPhil. Oxford)

is the first Buddhist university established in Shan State, Myanmar. It is located around serene hills which only takes about ten minutes by car from downtown of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State.

SSBU at present offers MA degree programmes and PhD degree programmes. In our unique degree programmes, students can tap into our rich tradition of excellence in textual, philological, philosophical, psychological and doctrinal study and gain perspective on ways in which Buddhism informs and is informed by the contemporary world.

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Vision and Aim

Historical Background of Buddhist Universities

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