Fyodor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy or Stcherbatsky (Фёдор Ипполи́тович Щербатско́й) (11 September (N.S.) 1866 – 18 March 1942), often referred to in the literature as F. Th. Stcherbatsky, was a Russian

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is of ...

who, in large part, was responsible for laying the foundations in the Western world for the scholarly study of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and

Buddhist philosophy Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in India following the parinirvana of The Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combi ...

. He was born in

Kielce Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the ba ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

(

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

), and died at the Borovoye Resort in northern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental coun ...

. Stcherbatsky studied in the famous

Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum The Imperial Lyceum (Императорский Царскосельский лицей, ''Imperatorskiy Tsarskosel'skiy litsey'') in Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg, also known historically as the Imperial Alexander Lyceum after its founde ...

(graduating in 1884), and later in the Historico-Philological Faculty of

Saint Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

(graduating in 1889), where

Ivan Minayeff Ivan Pavlovich Minayev or Minayeff (Иван Павлович Минаев; 21 October 1840 – 13 June 1890) was the first Russian Indologist whose disciples included Serge Oldenburg, F. Th. Stcherbatsky, and Dmitry Kudryavsky. As a stude ...

and Serge Oldenburg were his teachers. Subsequently, sent abroad, he studied Indian poetry with Georg Bühler in Vienna, and Buddhist philosophy with

Hermann Jacobi Hermann Georg Jacobi (11 February 1850 – 19 October 1937) was an eminent German Indologist. Education Jacobi was born in Köln (Cologne) on 11 February 1850. He was educated in the gymnasium of Cologne and then went to the University of Ber ...

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

. In 1897, he and Oldenburg inaugurated ''Bibliotheca Buddhica'', a library of rare Buddhist texts. Returning from a trip to

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

and

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 millio ...

, in 1903 Stcherbatsky published (in Russian) the first volume of ''Theory of Knowledge and Logic of the Doctrine of Later Buddhists'' ( 2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1903-1909 ). In 1928 he established the Institute of Buddhist Culture in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. His ''The Conception of Buddhist

Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lamp Richard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo. ...

'' (Leningrad, 1927), written in English, caused a sensation in the West. He followed suit with his main work in English, ''Buddhist Logic'' (2 vols., 1930–32), which has exerted an immense influence on

Buddhology Buddhist studies, also known as Buddhology, is the academic study of Buddhism. The term ''Buddhology'' was coined in the early 20th century by the Unitarian minister Joseph Estlin Carpenter to mean the "study of Buddhahood, the nature of the Budd ...

. Although Stcherbatsky remained less well known in his own country, his extraordinary fluency in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...

and

Tibetan languages The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptiv ...

won him the admiration of

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

and

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

. According to

Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (19 November 1918 – 8 May 1993) was an Indian Marxist philosopher. He made contributions to the exploration of the materialist current in ancient Indian philosophy. He is known for '' Lokayata: A Study in Ancient ...

,Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya ( Nov. 19, 1918 - May 8, 1993 ) - Indian Marxist philosopher. This quote appears to be from the "Introduction" Chattopadhyaya wrote to ''Papers of Th. Stcherbatsky'' (1969)(Calcutta: Indian Studies, Past & Present - Soviet Indology Series, No.2). "Stcherbatsky did help us – the Indians – to discover our own past and to restore the right perspective of our own philosophical heritage." The

Encyclopædia Britannica The ( Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various ...

(2004 edition) acclaimed Stcherbatsky as "the foremost Western authority on Buddhist philosophy".

References

Bibliography

* Bapat, P. V. (1943)
Fedore Ippolitorich Stcherbatsky
Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 24 (3/4), 284-285 * Ruegg, D. Seyfort (1971)
Dedication to Th. Stcherbatsky
Journal of Indian Philosophy 1 (3), 213-216

External links

in English) * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120717104231/http://www.300.years.spb.ru/eng/3_spb_3.html?id=73 Bibliotheca Buddhica(in English)
Stcherbatsky's biography
(in Russian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shcherbatskoy 1866 births 1942 deaths Russian logicians Russian Indologists Russian scholars of Buddhism Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum alumni Russian philosophers