Buddhist monastics in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan will soon be able to consult a Japanese-designed generative-AI chatbot capable of engaging in-depth discussion of Buddhist philosophy, after the “BuddhaBot Plus” project was jointly launched earlier this month by Bhutan’s monastic authorities and Kyoto University.
Over the next three years, as many as 200 monks and nuns of the Zhung Dratshang, Bhutan’s Central Monastic Body, will have access to BuddhaBot Plus, which was developed by a team from Kyoto University and Japan’s Teraverse Co.
“As a pilot project, we have identified students from institutes such as Tango Buddhist College and the Institute of Science of Mind to begin using BuddhaBot,” said the secretary of the Council for Administration and Development Affairs, Choten Dorji. “We will test it for six months, and if successful, we will expand it to other monastic institutions.” (Kuensel)
Under the terms of an agreement signed in Japan, the Zhung Dratshang, Kyoto University, and Teraverse Co will jointly test and develop the English version of BuddhaBot, drawing up usage guidelines for monastic institutions. The AI chatbot will gradually be made more widely accessible in Bhutan by the Zhung Dratshang in collaboration with Bhutan’s Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, with the full rollout expected by 2027.
If the project is deemed a success, the initiative could be made available to lay Buddhists in Bhutan—amid declining interest in Buddhism among younger people—and subsequently outside of the country. A co-developer of BuddhaBot, Prof. Seiji Kumagai of Kyoto University’s Research Institute for the Future of Human and Society, said the chatbot would offer people new opportunities and ways to access and interact with the Buddhadharma.
Developed using on advanced deep-learning AI models, BuddhaBot reportedly generates high-quality responses by analyzing data from canonical Buddhist texts
“The old version of BuddhaBot provided the text of Buddhist scriptures in their original form, but it often struggled to offer clear, detailed answers,” Prof. Kumagai explained. “BuddhaBot Plus solves this by generating more comprehensive responses while preserving the Buddha’s original words.” (Kuensel)
Kyoto University first developed that chatbot in 2021, using a Japanese translation of the Sutta Nipata, a collection of discourses of the Buddha from the Pali Canon that includes some of the oldest Buddhist textual compositions.
The team later evolved the chatbot using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to create BuddhaBot Plus, with the capability to generate deeper interpretations and explanations of teachings contained within the Sutta Nipata. Subsequently, Bhutan’s Zhung Dratshang reached out to BuddhaBot’s developers to request an English-language version, which was completed in 2024.
Addressing the pervasive issues of data reliability and information accuracy associated with using large language models (LLM), Prof. Kumagai emphasized that BuddhaBot draws its responses only from original textual sources.
Prof. Kumagai projected that BuddhaBot Plus could offer new, AI-generated perspectives and interpreations of the texts and their teachings, and could have potential applications in interfaith dialogue. “This could fundamentally transform how knowledge is shared across disciplines,” he added. (Kuensel)
Speaking at a news conference on 3 February, Prof. Kumagai noted that BuddhaBot Plus could also “offer opportunities for many people to receive Buddhist teachings also in Japan, where [public visits to] temples are expected to decrease.” (The Japan Times)
Bhutan, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayan mountain range, and sandwiched between the two political and economic heavy hitters India and China, is the world’s last remaining Vajrayana Buddhist country. The spiritual tradition is embedded in the very consciousness and culture of this remote land, where it has flourished with an unbroken history that dates back to its introduction by Padmasambhava, also known as Guru Rinpoche, in the eighth century. Almost 85 per cent of Bhutan’s population identify as Buddhists, with Hinduism accounting for the majority of the remainder. Most of Bhutan’s Buddhists follow either the Drukpa Kagyu or the Nyingma schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.
See more
BuddhaBot: AI for Buddhism (Kuensel)
BuddhaBot Plus: artificial intelligence to expand Buddhist knowledge in Bhutan (PIME asianews)
Japanese-made AI Buddha to make debut in Bhutan (The Japan Times)
Launch of BuddhaBot (Buddhist Dialogue AI) for Buddhist Communities Overseas Use: Kyoto Univ. Collaborative project with the Central Monastic Body of the Kingdom of Bhutan (Foreign Press Center Japan)
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