Organization
Buddhist Institute
វិទ្យាស្ថានពុទ្ធសាសនបណ្ឌិត្យ
The Buddhist Institute (វិទ្យាស្ថានពុទ្ធសាសនបណ្ឌិត្យ; in French, Institut bouddhique) is a center for Buddhist study and publishing in Phnom Penh.[1][2] Founded in 1930, it published the Buddhist canon in Pali and Khmer, and in 1998 it became the home of the national collection of Buddhist texts.[3][4]
Founding
The historian Hideo Sasagawa dates the Institute to January 25, 1930, when a decree of the Governor General of Indochina set up Buddhist research bodies in Phnom Penh and in Vientiane. The French School of the Far East (École française d'Extrême-Orient) helped run it, and the French scholar Suzanne Karpelès became its first secretary general.[1] Sources differ on how it relates to the older Royal Library, which Karpelès had also led. The literary scholar Khing Hoc Dy writes that the Royal Library became the Buddhist Institute on January 25, 1930. Sasagawa writes that the Library was a separate body until a decree of February 8, 1943 merged it into the Institute.[3][1]
The reforming monks Chuon Nath and Huot Tath worked in both bodies, and Sasagawa writes that they called for the reform of the Mohanikay order.[1] Chuon Nath sat on the committee of the Royal Library from 1927.[2]
Publishing
The review Kambuja Suriya (កម្ពុជសុរិយា), first published by the Royal Library in 1926 and then by the Institute, was the first cultural review in the Khmer language.[3] From 1931 the Institute published the Tripitaka, the Buddhist canon, in 110 volumes with the Pali text beside a Khmer translation. A translation committee set up in 1929 prepared it. Khing Hoc Dy dates the last volume to 1968, and Sasagawa to April 1969.[3][1] The Institute also published secular books and modern novels. Khing Hoc Dy writes that the Royal Library and the Institute became centers of intellectual life where early Khmer nationalism took shape.[3]
After 1975
A report handed out at the opening of the new building in 1998 said that the Khmer Rouge had destroyed the Institute's collection of 40,000 texts in 1975.[4] The Institute was relaunched in 1992 under the Ministry of Cults and Religions, at Wat Ounalom on Sisowath Quay. A new two-story building near the National Museum, with 16 rooms and a conference hall, was built with donations from the Japanese lay Buddhist group Rissho Kosei-kai. The National Assembly president, Chea Sim, opened it in May 1998, and said the Institute would go on teaching monks, printing books and hosting cultural gatherings.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Hideo Sasagawa, The policies toward Buddhism and the responses of the Buddhist monks in colonial Cambodia, Kyoto University Center for Southeast Asian Studies, G-COE working paper 83 (undated, about 2010) (in Japanese, with an English abstract)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Radio Free Asia Khmer, Keo Pich Metta, A short biography of Samdech Preah Sangharaja Chuon Nath (September 22, 2011; in Khmer)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Khing Hoc Dy, Littérature et éditions khmères, Bulletin de l'AEFEK no. 20 (undated, after 2014) (in French)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Cambodia Daily, Kimsan Chantara, New Buddhist Institute inaugurated in capital (May 29, 1998)