A transgression?

[Yaroslav V. Vassilkov]

>From yavass Fri Jan 30 20:48:59 MSK 1998

As the two Roerichs are concerned, the father, Nikolas K.Roerich really was
a mystic, a painter, and a traveller in Tibet, but it was only his son,
George N.Roerich, whom we may call a professional Orientalist, and
a Tibetologist
in particular (well-known for his English translation of the "Blue Annals"
and many other works). Our mention of his name in the INDOLOGY is not a
transgression in any way, because he was a Sanskritist as well, and his many
works bear directly on Ancient and Mediaeval Indian culture, e.g. the
"Biography of Dharmasvamin" - a translation of a biography of a great
Tibetan teacher who made pilgrimage to India in the XIII century (Patna,
1959), a multy-volumed Tibetan-Sanskrit-English-Russian Dictionary, and
so on.

        Speaking about the exchange of ideas between East and West, Russia
and Western Europe in the field of Indian studies, we should stress the fact
that George Roerich, who had graduated University of London, Harvard and
Sorbonne, worked for about 30 years in India and then, on his return to
Russia, founded in Moscow a center for Classical Indian and Tibetan Studies
- after they had been banned in the USSR for more than two previous decades.
Roerich himself started teaching Sanskrit and Pali and guiding young
Indologists in their work. He managed to revive the "Bibliotheca Buddhica"
series (banned in 1937). But in 1960, when the first volume of the renewed
"Bibliotheca Buddhica" (philologically exact and stylistically perfect
translation of "Dhammapada", done by one of G.Roerich's pupils Vladimir
Toporov) was in the press, somebody reported to the authorities, that G.Roerich
and his pupils are going to publish a "Buddhist religious text". Immediately
the printing process was stopped. Roerich was told that "Dhammapada", as a
book containing "religious propaganda", will never be published in the
USSR. But then suddenly Roerich's old friend, the Ambassador of Ceylon and
a Buddhist scholar Malalasekera came to his help. He invited many high
Soviet officials, including some leading "ideological workers", to a festive
reception at the Ceylonese embassy. Only at the Embassy most of them learned
that the reception had to celebrate "the would-be publication of the great
work of Ceylonese literature - 'Dhammapada' - for the first time in Russian
translation". Of course, after that the Party bosses could not ban the
publication. But they had their revenge on Roerich next day after the book
appeared in print. He was invited to Director's office at the Institute of
Oriental Studies and crudely reprimanded by the Institute's Communist party
officials who shouted at him accusing him in "subversive activities". People
say that this incident caused Roerich's premature death from the heart attack
several days after.
     I hope you will forgive me this excursus into the history of Indian
studies in the former Soviet Union.
        Regards,
                                Yaroslav Vassilkov