ERIC Number: EJ1098462
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1938-9809
EISSN: N/A
Religion, Education and the Role of Government in Old Tibet
Perdue, Daniel
Forum on Public Policy Online, v2007 n1 Win 2007
In speaking of "old Tibet" I mean to refer to Tibet prior to the Tibetan diaspora of 1959 or most certainly to the Tibet that was prior to the invasion by the Communist Chinese in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In old Tibet, to a great extent, all education was religious education. Tibetans say of themselves that prior to the arrival of Buddhism in their country, beginning perhaps as early as the 600s of the Common Era, the Tibetan people were barbarians. Mostly nomadic herders, the Tibetans did not have a written language. Then, when the Tibetans began to adopt Buddhism from India, they created a script modeled on the Sanskrit alphabet. Subsequently, over a period of about three hundred years before Buddhism was wiped out in India by the Muslim Mughals from Persia, the Tibetan government and wealthy Tibetans undertook to translate the Buddhist literature of India, both the word of the Buddha and the commentarial tradition, that the Indians had amassed in more than a millennium since the time of the Buddha. Thus, from the beginning of Buddhism in Tibet and for well over a millennium since, the Tibetan government has been keenly involved in both religion and education. So we see in the case of old Tibet a real bonding of religion, education, and the role of government. The power and money of Tibet were put into the monasteries, and the monasteries were the main providers of education.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Government Role, Buddhism, Religious Education, History, Translation, Indians, Role of Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: China
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A