Sera Monastery

Why Sera Monastery is special
The Sera Monastery is one of China's elite Buddhist monastic educational institutions. It dates back to the early 15th century.

Sera Monastery tips and insights
How to pronouce
Sera: suhr-rah

Function
The Sera Monastery is a large complex of buildings. These include large religious halls, three respected Buddhist religious colleges, and many monk dormitories.

The major focus of the monastery is education, not worship (though the latter is still an intense pursuit). Sera Monastery draws both aspiring monks and learned scholars. The age span ranges from 8 to 60 and above.

Emphatic debates
Don't miss watching the monks debate with each other in a large courtyard. They emphasize their debate points with heavy foot stomping and loud claps of the hands. This highly animated debating method is part of the time-honored monastic educational system.

Monk population
Over 10,000 monks (according to one estimate) once resided in the Sera Monastery. Today's number is under one thousand. Students have come from neighboring nations, including Japan.

Murals and statues
See the exceptional murals in the small chapels - and the important statuary in the major halls.

Also see
Other major tourism highlights include viewing notable religious relics.

Setting
The Sera Monastery has an admirable site. It lies on an alluvial apron of a foothill mountain, endowing it with an inspiring vista of the Lhasa area and backdrop mountains.

Nearest major city
Sera Monastery is situated 3 kilometers (2 miles) north of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet (Xizang is its Chinese name).