Sarnath's international monasteries

Sarnath is not only ruins. Around the excavated deer park a living community has grown, as Buddhist nations built monasteries to keep the place of the first teaching alive in practice as well as memory.

The living traditions

The Mulagandha Kuti Vihara, built by the Mahabodhi Society in 1931, holds frescoes by the Japanese master Kosetsu Nosu and a relic of the Buddha shown to pilgrims on special days. Nearby stand the Thai, Burmese, Tibetan, Chinese and Sri Lankan temples, each with its own daily liturgy. Above all, Sarnath is home to the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, one of the foremost universities of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy anywhere, open to serious visitors on most afternoons.

A scholar's town

Because of the Institute, Sarnath has a studious, quiet character — monks in debate, libraries, the smell of butter lamps and old paper. For pilgrims on our academic and India circuits, an afternoon among the monasteries and, where possible, a conversation with resident scholars, turns the ancient site into a living one.