Vasily Pavlovic Vasilyev was born in Nizhny Novgorod on February 20th. 1834 was admitted to the Oriental Department of Chinese Department of Kazan University to study Mongolian and Tatar. 1837 upon graduation, he passed the thesis defense with the essence of Buddhist literature, obtained a bachelor's degree, and stayed in school to teach. 1839 obtained a master's degree in Mongolian literature by defending his thesis on the philosophical principles of Buddhism. In the same year, he came to China as a student as a member of the 12th Missionary Society. His task is to study Tibetan, Chinese and Sanskrit in China.

He has lived and studied in China for 10 years. During this period, he extensively dabbled in China, Indian and Tibetan Buddhist classics, studied many Sinology issues and collected a lot of materials. Vasiliev's years in China are of great significance to his growth. Here, he grew from a Buddhist scholar in Kazan University to a sinologist with a wide range of interests.

1In September, 850, Vasiliev returned to Russia. 185 1 became a professor in China Manchu Teaching and Research Section of Kazan University. 1852 was elected as a member of the Russian Geographical Society, and 1857 was elected as a member of the Russian Archaeological Society. In addition, from April 1862 to July 1868, he worked as an interpreter in the Asian Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 1855 In April, the Oriental Department of St. Petersburg University was renamed the Oriental Department, and the Oriental Department of Kazan University merged. Vasiliev immediately went to St. Petersburg to work and continue to be a professor. He made brilliant achievements in the scientific research and teaching activities of St. Petersburg University all his life, which made him a world-renowned scholar. 186465438+In February, Vasilyev successfully passed the defense with a paper entitled "Manchu Data in Yuan and Ming Dynasties" and obtained a doctorate in Oriental Languages. He is the first sinologist in Russia to defend his doctoral thesis.

Due to his outstanding achievements and high reputation in oriental academic circles, Vasiliev was elected as an academician of Russian Academy of Sciences in 1866 and became a full academician in 1886.

Vasiliev is an outstanding Buddhist researcher, and some scholars regard his achievements in Buddhist studies as his greatest contribution to Russian Sinology. In Vasiliev's early scientific activities, Buddhist studies played an important role. His alternate doctoral thesis "The Essence of Buddhist Literature" and his master's thesis "On the Philosophical Principles of Buddhism" are examples. During his stay in China, Vasiliev made a systematic and in-depth study of Sino-Tibetan Buddhist documents and compiled several volumes of masterpieces, Buddhism and its Doctrine, History and Literature. Vasiliev has a huge plan in studying Buddhism. 1850 after he returned to Russia, he found that Russians were not interested in his research, and no institution was willing to publish such a voluminous and professional book. In the end, Vasiliev only published two volumes, General Introduction to Indian Buddhism and History of Indian Buddhism, which played an important role in the history of Buddhist studies.

Thousands of pages of manuscripts he brought back from China, including translations, excerpts and comments of Buddhist documents, were not published in the end, and some were lost. Among Vasiliev's Buddhist research manuscripts, the largest one is the Dictionary of Buddhist Terms. According to Vasiliev's idea, this dictionary should contain 9565 Buddhist entries. There are two volumes of manuscripts of this dictionary in Vasilyev's archives, the first volume is 1205 and the second volume is 922 pages, but not every page has been completed, and the definitions of some pages are still empty, only Sanskrit terms and their Tibetan, Mongolian and Chinese translations. Although there are still some problems, the number of completed entries is still very large, most of which are accurate and rich in content.

Another manuscript left by Vasiliev is called Buddhist Literature Review, which consists of two parts. 1 part is a literature review of various schools of Buddhism, mainly referring to the works of Zhang Jiahutuktu. This part is also unfinished, with only four chapters written: Hinayana, Youzong, Kongzong and Legalism, and a large number of Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures have been translated into Tibetan and Chinese. Among the European sinologists in the19th century, I'm afraid only Vasiliev can make such a profound study and detailed exposition. In these two parts, he translated "Reading Tibet" and "Understanding Tianjin" compiled by monk Xu Zhi in 1654. This book makes a detailed analysis of China's Buddhist classics, and it is an extremely rich Buddhist work.

The manuscripts of Tibetan Buddhist history are also very valuable. This book mainly describes the political and religious events in Tibet before 1746, and is written according to the second part of the History of Tibetan Buddhism in Indo-China Mongolia by Zumba Yixibanjue, a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. At the end of the book, there is an appendix, the Chronology of History compiled by Sumba Isibanjaw, which was translated by Vasilyev according to the European Chronology Method. There is also a manuscript called Xuanzang's Travels, which is a full-text translation of Xuanzang's Journey to the West by Vasiliev. If it can be published at that time, then the first honorary laurel of translating this important work into European languages will definitely be worn on Vasilyev's head. But now, after the English versions of Bile and Waters are published, his translations can only be used as research materials for the history of Russian Sinology. Although many important manuscripts of Vasilyev have been lost, we can also conclude that Vasilyev was the leading Buddhist scholar in Russia in the19th century from the above-mentioned preserved works.

Vasiliev is far ahead of his European counterparts in Buddhist studies. The subject he studied in the first half of the19th century did not become the research object of scholars from other countries until the end of19th century and the beginning of 20th century. Odenberg wrote that if the achievements of 10 brought back by Vasiliev from Beijing can be published in 1950s, the whole study of Buddhism in Russia will inevitably take a more significant turn, and Russian scholars will be able to understand Buddhism and its historical development.

Vasiliev is the first Russian expert in the history of China literature. 1880, he published an epoch-making work in the history of sinology in the world-Outline of the History of China Literature. The Outline of China Literature History can be divided into three parts. The first part is an introduction, including three sections: several prefaces, China people's language and writing, and ancient Chinese and literature, which explain the background, conditions and writing intention of the author of China Ancient Books. The focus is on the middle part, which is divided into "the first period of Confucianism" and "the second period of Confucianism" based on the development of Confucianism. In fact, it introduces Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and their respective classic works based on these two periods. The second half introduces science, technology and literature. This book entitled "Outline of Literary History" is actually a classic history of China culture in the modern sense.

The Outline of China's Literary History first introduces hundreds of ancient China theories to the Russians, including Spring and Autumn Annals, Zuo Zhuan, Shu Jing, The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Everything is done wrong, Lv Chunqiu, The Book of Rites and the Book of Changes.

The emphasis is on introducing Confucianism. Another important content of the Outline of China Literature History is critical literature, including poetry, drama and novels. The Outline of China Literature History contains such rich contents and such a wide range of disciplines, which can be said to be the epitome of early Russian Sinology research and the summary of academic achievements.

Russian sinologists generally believe that Vasiliev is not a linguist in the full sense, but his achievements in the study of China cannot but attract our attention. In the study of linguistics in China, Vasiliev's two most important works are Analysis of China's hieroglyphics (1866) and Chinese Character System (1876). Vasiliev's great contribution to Russian Chinese teaching lies in his first systematic Chinese teaching and his Introduction to Chinese Learning, which contains his most famous Chinese study book, An Analysis of China's hieroglyphics. Vasiliev's Chinese character font system was accepted by the Oriental Department of St. Petersburg University and became the main teaching material for students to learn Chinese characters. At the same time, the system is also recommended for Chinese teaching in other Orientalist teaching institutions.

From 65438 to 0952, under the auspices of Professor E. Yin Shan, the largest Chinese-Russian dictionary was published, still based on the Chinese character font system formulated by Vasiliev. Until today, every Russian who studies Chinese will feel the convenience brought to them by the Vasiliev system used in the dictionary. In order to fully display Vasiliev's achievements as a linguist, we must examine his exploration of other oriental languages. He has written some linguistic works about oriental languages. His profound understanding of oriental languages provides conditions for him to use contrastive linguistics in his research. In the article "The Relationship between Chinese and Central Asian Languages", Vasiliev compared Manchu, Mongolian, Tatar and other languages with Chinese, and pointed out their mutual influence and mutual penetration and supplement of vocabulary. In addition, Vasiliev also compiled two important Manchu textbooks. 1863 Edited Selected Works of Introduction to Manchu, which is the first Manchu teaching material in Russia. 1866, he published a lithographically printed Manchu-Russian dictionary.

Vasiliev's works on the historical geography of China were mainly published in the 1950s and 1960s of 19, and his research is often the continuation of Beechulin's research on the history of China. For example, in the preface of the book History and Monuments in Eastern Central Asia, he pointed out that Niyabi Chulin had missed the history of the Khitan people and the jurchen and Manchu people he replaced, so he decided to fill this gap and summarize the history of more than 300 years. To this end, he translated Liao History and Jin History as appendices to the book. This book uses a lot of little-known materials of Russian Sinology, which is of great scientific value for studying the history of northern China, especially Mongolian history. Manchu history is one of the focuses of Vasilyev's historical research. Comfort of Mongols in the Early Qing Dynasty, Diary of Military Minister Masha's Northern Expedition, Records of Manchuria, Introduction to Ningguta, etc. It constitutes a series of works of Vasiliev's research and translation of Manchu. Unfortunately, many works were not published and became part of a large number of manuscripts he left to future generations.

Vasiliev believes that geography and history are inseparable subjects, so it is necessary to explore history when investigating various geographical phenomena. On the contrary, when discussing historical issues, we should give consideration to geography. Teaching needs are one of the motivations of Vasilyev's geographical research. In his Selected Works of China, he collected monographs on the history and geography of China and translations of ancient books in China. In addition, he also wrote The Geographical Survey of China and A Review of China's Political Geography as supplements to the first volume of Selected Works of China published between 1867 and 1868. The book "A Survey of Geography of China" fully shows Vasilyev's attainments in the geographical research of China. It not only outlines the geography of China, but also includes travel notes. The content and form are detailed and vivid, and it has become a model of geography textbooks in China. Although Data of Manchu in Yuan and Ming Dynasties is a historical research work, it mainly investigates the origin of Manchu, but it also contains a lot of precious geographical data, enumerates ancient towns and describes mountains and rivers.

Another of his famous geographical works is Manchu Tongzhi published in 1857, and he published a translation of Ninggutalue as an appendix to the book. This book introduces the geographical and administrative divisions of China, describes the local cities and residents, and discusses land and water transportation in particular. 1852 Published "Central Asia and China's Main Mountains" in the Journal of the Ministry of Education. Although the space is not large, the content is substantial. In addition, Vasiliev also wrote some small articles that belong to the category of geographical research in China. For example, memories of Beijing, suggestions for travelers who choose to go to China, alfalfa and autumn in Yili. Vasiliev's historical and geographical works did not arouse great repercussions during his lifetime, and it was not until the Soviet period that they were sorted out and studied by several sinologists who studied the history of Russian Sinology.

1900 On April 27th, Vasiliev died at the age of 82. Vasiliev's manuscript is twice as much as his published works. These manuscripts became silent testimony of Russian China studies.