Dongguk University (Korean: 동국대학교, Hanja: 東國大學校) is a private, coeducational university in South Korea, based on Buddhism. Established in 1906 as Myeongjin School (명진학교; 明進學校) by Buddhist pioneers of the Association of Buddhism Research (불교연구회; 佛敎硏究會), the university gained full university status as Dongguk University in 1953. The university remains one of the few Buddhist-affiliated universities in the world, and is the member of International Association of Buddhist Universities.[3]
Situated on a hill near Namsan, the university’s Seoul campus is in the urban Jung District of central Seoul. The university’s symbol animal is an elephant, which stemmed from Queen Māyā of Sakya‘s precognitive dream of white elephant about the birth of Gautama Buddha, and the symbol flower is a lotus blossom which reflects the Buddhist truth.[4]
Dongguk University Seoul campus is organised into 12 undergraduate and graduate schools, which enrolled 13,701 undergraduate students and 1,801 graduate students and granted 3,140 bachelor’s, 470 master’s and 172 doctorate degrees in 2017.[1][2] Its comprehensive academic programme offers 53 undergraduate majors, together with 59 graduate programmes.[5]
The university also operates campuses in Goyang, Gyeongju, and Los Angeles, United States. The university operates two affiliated hospitals of Western medicine, and four of Oriental medicine, a generic term which includes traditional Korean medicine studies.
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