Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/228

 mission to Pekin proved to be of some consequence in this respect. Russian sinology was inaugurated by Bichurin and Katharov, the investigators of China's culture, and promoted by Vasiliev, who spent ten years at the Mission and became one of the highest authorities on Buddhism in China. Under the influence of the lectures delivered by Vasiliev in Petrograd, Minayev, the well-known critic of the "Pali-theory" of Buddhism, began to study the evolution of Buddhism in the original texts and observed its manifestations in Ceylon, Nepal and Burma. The great work done by Boethlingk in the domain of Indian philology was, of course, highly appreciated by Minayev, himself the author of a grammar of the Pali language; but he and his pupils were more inclined to continue the investigations of Minayev on Buddhistic culture; Oldenburg studied Buddhistic legends and particularly iconography; Shcherbatsky explained ancient Indian philosophical treatises in the light of modern critical thought, etc. The well-known Iranian scholar Saleman had also an influence on this movement; and Persian studies were carried on by Tukovsky in his treatise on Persian dialects and other publications.

These studies were organized by Rosen and supplemented in modern times by new branches of knowledge, cultivated more or less independently by Russian scholars; Lemm and his pupil Turayev, Golenishchev and Nikolsky promoted Egyptology and Assyriology; Brosset and Marr investigated the languages and antiquities, the literature and history of Georgia and Armenia; Tukovsky and Bartold elucidated the