The Central University for Tibetan Studies (CIHTS) (Tibetan: ཝ་ཎ་མཐོ་སློབ, Wylie: wa Na mtho slob) is a university institute founded in Sarnath, Varanasi, India in 1967, as an autonomous organization under Union Ministry of Culture.
The CIHTS was founded by Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru in consultation with Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, with the aim of educating the youths of Tibet in exile in Dharamsala and the Himalayan border students, as well as with the aim of retranslating into Sanskrit and translating into Hindi and other modern Indian languages lost Indo-Buddhist Sanskrit texts that now exist only in Tibetan.
Originally it functioned as a special constituent wing of Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Varanasi. In the early 1970s the Government of India reviewed the progress of the institute and decided to accord it a status of an autonomous body under the Department of Culture, Ministry of Education, Government of India in 1977 with 100% financial support from the Indian government.
The institute steadily progressed and the Indian government declared it a Deemed University on April 5, 1988. The institute is currently headed by Prof. Ngawang Samten, assisted by faculty members, with the goal of achieving excellence in the field of Tibetology, Buddhology and Himalayan Studies.
On 14 January 2009 this institute was officially declared as a university and the inauguration was made by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. Now the name of the university is Central University of Tibetan Studies.
Famous quotes containing the words central, institute, higher and/or studies:
“Friends serve central functions for children that parents do not, and they play a critical role in shaping children’s social skills and their sense of identity. . . . The difference between a child with close friendships and a child who wants to make friends but is unable to can be the difference between a child who is happy and a child who is distressed in one large area of life.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Slavery can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation; and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.”
—Maria Weston Chapman (1806–1885)
“[B]y going to the College [William and Mary] I shall get a more universal Acquaintance, which may hereafter be serviceable to me; and I suppose I can pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin as well there as here, and likewise learn something of the Mathematics.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)