Datsan (monastic university) plyaed a role as a traditional institute of education in Mongolia during the era of Qing Dynasty ranging from the late 16th century to the early 20th century. Historically, Datsan was established as an annex to Buddhist temple in Mongolia and served as a comprehensive educational institution with a view to educating and studying the interpretation of Buddhist scriptures as well as other secular studies including philosophy, logic, medicine, astronomy, history, languages, literature, art, architecture and more. In this context, Datsan is comparable to our contemporary system university.
The purpose of this study was to examine acceptance and historical transition of Datsan in Mongolia, and sum up an aspect of Mongolia's educational and cultural history. In particular, this study went beyond generalized explanations about the scale, types, designations and organizational structure of Mongolian Buddhist temples, and focused more on taking an opportunity to further discuss and sum up each stratum of the temples.
Furthermore, this study sought to make a further analysis on education and academic degree system, curriculum, learning methods and learning content by each field of studies in Mongolian Datsan. It would be necessary for future researchers to make a variety of further studies into the multidisciplinary educations of Mongolian Datsan as a part of Oriental educational history.