The Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka (BPUSL) was established in 1982 at the government premises located at No. 214, Bauddhaloka Mawatha, Colombo 7. As one of the main components of the university, the library could start its operations at the same location at the same year. But, due to the policy decision taken by the government and the university, the university along with the BPUSL library was moved from Colombo to Homagama in 1997. Few years later, the university started to build up new building for the library due to insufficiency of space of the temporary location. In 2010, the library could move from temporary place to the new building located at faculty premises of Gurulugomi Mawatha, Pitipana North, Homagama. The library has more than 44000 sqft spread throughout four storeys. The Library of the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka (BPUSL) is dedicated to support the institution’s goals of spreading Buddhism and popularizing Pali language both locally and worldwide. At the moment, the library has a collection of more than 65,000 books out of which majority are for most demanded subjects of the university.
The collection contains the Tripitaka in few languages, rare books in Buddhism, Buddhist Philosophy, Philosophy, Archeology, History, Psychology, Pali, Sanskrit and many other oriental and western languages. In addition to specialized reading materials for each subject, audiovisual materials, journals, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, glossaries, magazine, CDs etc. has been added into the collection.
The primary goal of the library is to provide information available through different media for teaching, learning and research of the university. In this regard, the library provides ample of space for its users with relevant facilities for reference, reading and writing. As resourceful library in Buddhism, our library provides research facilities for both local and international researchers / scholars. The ultimate goal of the library is to provide relevant and timely information for our users to fulfill their needs on time aiming to make more critical thinkers and lifelong learners.