Sera Monastery is one of the ‘great three’ Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Drepung Monastery. The origin of the name ‘Sera’ is not certain, but it may derive 
from the fact that the original site was surrounded by ‘Wild Roses’ (se ra in Tibetan). The original Sera monastery was in Lhasa, Tibet, about 5 km north of the Jokang in Lhasa. After the Chinese took control of Tibet in 1959, it was reconsituted in Bylakuppe, India, near Mysore. Sera was founded in 1419, by Jamchen Chojey (Sakya Yeshe), a disciple of Tsong Khapa.
Like the Drepung and Ganden monasteries, it had several colleges:
Sera Mey Dratsang, built in 1419, which gave basic instruction to the monks. Sera Jey Dratsang, built in 1435, was the largest, and was reserved for wandering monks, especially Mongol monks. Ngagpa Dratsang, built in 1559, was a school for the teaching of the Gelukpa tantras.
Sera housed more than 5,000 monks in 1959. Although badly damaged, it is still standing and has been largely repaired. It now houses a few hundred Buddhist monks
