РЕЦЕНЗИЯ НА МОНОГРАФИЮ Е. Г. ВЫРЩИКОВА «ГОРОД — ДЕРЕВНЯ — ЛЕС: МИР СОЗДАТЕЛЕЙ ПАЛИЙСКОГО КАНОНА И ИХ СОВРЕМЕННИКОВ»

Abstract

Following is a review оf the monograph published in 2019 by Yevgeniy G. Vyrshchikov ‘City — Village — Forest: The World of the Creators of the Pali Canon and Their Contemporaries’, which was published in 2019 by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (editors: V. V. Vertogradova and V. P. Androsov). This work is a cultural study of the so called Pali Canon, or Tipitaka — the early Buddhist Canon of the Theravada school. It is mainly devoted to ideas about space and related views on the structure of the world and society. To understand the cultural context of the existence of early Buddhist ideas about the world, other sources are also involved — Buddhist, Brahmanic and Hindu texts: Ceylon’s mahavamsa, Arthashastra, Ramayana, Chitrasutra, other Sanskrit texts and Ashoka’s epigraphic inscriptions. In addition, ancient sources are used, such as Strabo’s “Geography”, as well as medieval English ballads about Robin Hood. According to the author, the world of the Pali Canon is divided into three main units of space: The most sacred and pure is the forest — the place where shramans and other ascetics live. Its opposite is the city, which embodies all that is worldly, contrary to asceticism and opposed to it. They are separated by an intermediate area — the countryside (janapada). The monograph explores all three components of this world, analyzes the necessary terminology and conceptual apparatus. The review provides an overview of the main provisions of the monograph and makes some critical comments on its text.