Datsan

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Datsan (Mongolian: Дацан, Russian: Дацан, Buryat: Дасан; derived from Standard Tibetan: གྲྭ་ཚང།, romanized: grwa.tshang) is the term used for Buddhist university monasteries in the Tibetan tradition^[1] of Gelukpa located throughout Mongolia, Tibet and Siberia. As a rule, in a datsan there are two departments—philosophical and medical. Sometimes a department of tantric practices is added to them where the monks study only after finishing education in the philosophical department.

In pre-revolutionary Russia, datsans traditionally existed only in the Buryat territories, most of those now included in Buryatia and Transbaikalia (a number of datsans there have been reconstructed or newly established since the early 1990s).^{[citation needed]} There was a difference with Tibetan administrative idea: in Tibet, several datsans were education-centered parts of larger organizations,^[1] as Drepung, Ganden, and Sera Monastery in Gelukpa tradition.^{[citation needed]} In Russia, datsans were not parts of a larger entity, but rather independent educational and religious centers. In Buryat Buddhism, the terms "Buddhist monastery" and "Datsan" are interchangeable,^[2] as other monastery organization forms found in Tibetan Buddhism elsewhere, were not present.