Monastic Education in Contemporary Asia

Abstract Education is a central component of Buddhism and has been since the start of the religion. The forms of Buddhist education are diverse, including the education and training of monastics and laypeople, men, women, and children from early ages through university and continuing and adult education. The training of monastics is simply one, albeit, important subset of wider systems and practices of Buddhist education. Monastic education exists in multiple forms, including those associated with apprentice or situated forms of learning, and curricular forms in schools, primarily secondary and postsecondary institutions. Contemporary forms of monastic education are entangled with and shaped by discourses and practices of modernization, dynamics of gender in Buddhist societies, and debates about the role of religion within given societies across Asia. These debates become visible in attending to the goals of education, the multiple motivations of monastics for their education, as well as those of other educational stakeholders. Although it may be tempting to see monastic education as a distinct phenomenon, it should be viewed within a wider pedagogical ecosystem within the nation-states of Asia.