On November 9-11, 2006, the second Dorzhiev Readings "Buddhist Culture: History, Source Studies, Linguistics and Art"were held in St. Petersburg. It was organized by the St. Petersburg Charitable Public Foundation "Society of Buryat Culture "Aya-Ganga", the State Hermitage Museum, the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the P. K. Kozlov Museum-Apartment, St. Petersburg FIIET RAS, the religious association of Buddhists "Datsan Gunzechoinei" with the support of the Committee on External Relations of the Government of St. Petersburg.St. Petersburg and the leadership of the Republic of Buryatia. For the second time, scientists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ulan-Ude and Elista gathered in the city on the Neva-Mongolian and Tibetologists, researchers of the life and work of Agvan Lobsan Dorzhiev (1853-1938), an outstanding religious and political figure, Buddhist philosopher, historian, and the most educated person of his time.

Having lived a long life, Agvan Dorzhiev took a special place among the Buddhist figures of Russia, Mongolia and Tibet. A difficult fate befell this man, who devoted his entire life to establishing friendly relations, mutual understanding and harmony between peoples. Mentor and official representative of the XIII Dalai Lama, who had the highest philosophical degree of Lharamba, Agvan Dorzhiev was a member of the Imperial Geographical Society. He not only contributed to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia, Tibet, and Mongolia, but also had a great influence on the formation of the scientific interest of Russian travelers and scientists in the problems of Buddhist philosophy. At the same time, he did not remain indifferent to the issues of education and enlightenment of the Mongolian peoples. As a translator, writer, poet and educator of his people, he created a new Buryat alphabet, which, in his opinion, was supposed to promote the promotion and dissemination of natural and humanitarian knowledge among the Buryats.

At the conference, which was held every day on a new scientific platform, reports were presented not only on the many-sided activities and creative heritage of Aghvan Dorzhiev; most of them were a kind of organic continuation and development of a large multi-faceted study of the history, literature, historiography, art, and linguistics of the Mongolian peoples, which the scientist began at the turn of the century. Such a concept of the Dorzhiev Readings is the most fruitful, capable of ensuring their viability.

At the opening of the conference, which was held in the library of the State Hermitage Museum's Department of Oriental Studies, greetings were given by: Chief Rector of the "Gunzechoinei Datsan" Champa Donyod (B. B. Badmaev), Chairman of the Committee on External Relations of the Government of St. Petersburg A.V. Prokhorenko. The conference also received greetings from the President of the Republican Public Foundation Agvan Dorzhiev E. D. Dagbayev (Ulan-Ude) and the Director of St. Petersburg. FIB RAS I. F. Popova.

In total, 58 reports were presented, more than 30 were read and discussed. The topics of the first day's two sessions focused on the activities of Agvan Dorzhiev, the history of Mongolian studies and Tibetology, general cultural and art history issues.

On the second day of the conference, the meetings were held in St. Petersburg. FIV RAS. They were devoted to issues of history and historiography, source studies and textual studies, literary studies and linguistics.

The third day brought together experts in the museum-apartment of P. K. Kozlov, who are particularly interested in the modern existence of Buddhism in various parts of the Mongolian-speaking and Tibetan-speaking world, issues related to travel and the study of Central Asia.

Head of the Department of Turkology and Mongolistics of St. Petersburg. FIV RAS S. T. Klyashtorny in his report "On the first attempts to introduce Buddhism as a state religion on the territory of Mongolia" spoke about the archaeological materials found that testify to attempts in the IV-XI centuries to introduce Buddhism as a state religion. The Turks, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs, who had their own states on the territory of Mongolia, repeatedly turned to Buddhism.

An interesting topic was raised by Yu. I. Drobyshev (Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in his report" Buddhism and Tengrianism: Confrontation or cooperation", who noted that both of these phenomena played a key role at the international level.

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many stages of development of the Mongolian peoples. Continuation and development of some of the provisions of this report are reflected in the report of P. F. Gunin and S. N. Sazh (both from Moscow) "The role of Buddhism as a regulator at different stages of socio - economic development of Mongolia".

Among the general cultural reports, we also note the report of A. G. Yurchenko (St. Petersburg) "Buddhism in the perception of Roger Bacon:" A large work of the "XIII century", which caused an interesting discussion. In it, the historian first presented to the scientific community the classification of world religions created by an English intellectual, where Mongols appear together with Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews and pagans. Buddhists occupy in this system, represented by the main "human races", the penultimate place before the pagans in terms of the degree of distance from the perfection of the one God.

Great interest was aroused by the report of T. V. Ermakova (St. Petersburg Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences) on the materials of P. S. Pallas concerning the existence of Buddhism in Russia in the XVIII century, considered as a historical source relevant in the perspective of a comparative historical study of the spread of Buddhism in Russia. The speaker, based on the published work of the scientist "Travels in different Provinces of the Russian Empire", described the contribution of P. S. Pallas to the study of the religious life of the Kalmyks, emphasizing the priority nature of the information in terms of publication time.

E. V. Voikova (Institute of Cultural Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) set the cultural task in her report "How the Mongols perceived the Russians in the XIX century". She traced the reflection of the religious sphere of life of the Mongols in the works of N. M. Przhevalsky "Mongolia and the country of the Tanguts" and G. N. Potanin "Essays on North-Western Mongolia" and came to the conclusion that for a long time Buddhism in Mongolia had a significant impact on all spheres of life, and its ideology influenced the formation of culture, everyday life and worldview of the Mongols.

E. N. Afonina (St. Petersburg State University) presented the same topic: "The Origins of Gelugpa Historiography", and T. A. Pan (St. Petersburg Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "Buddhism in the Shamanic world of the Manchus".

The block of reports was devoted to linguistic topics.

Z. K. Kasyanenko (St. Petersburg State University) addressed the very important topic of colophons of canonical works as a source of information about the linguistic knowledge of the Mongols, which has not yet attracted the proper attention of scientists. She expressed the opinion that colophons are an independent compositional unit of medieval Mongolian literary works, which not only reflect data about the author, scribe, editor, place and time of creation of the work, but also contain valuable terminological and conceptual information about the language, reflecting the level of linguistics, the processes of Mongolian literary creativity of that time.

N. S. Yakhontova (St. Petersburg Institute of Physics and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) made a report on the names of the Sun in traditional Mongolian texts. She traced Mongolian epithets back to traditional Sanskrit expressions from famous lexicons. Having made a classification of names, she found that the most significant number of them refers to definitions that characterize the Sun not as a deity or as an astronomical object, but as a physical reality of our life.

P. O. Rykin (IALY RAS) in his report "Tityam: about a Chinese title in Medieval Russian chronicles" considered the etymology of this term, which is found in Russian chronicles before 1262, as a designation for a representative of the Mongolian ka'an sent to Russia. The speaker ascribes it to the Chinese official title tidian "administrator", "inspector", which, according to the dictionary of rhymes" Zhongyuan yinyun " (1324), had the form t'itiem in the northern Middle Chinese dialects. The report lists the use of this title in Mongolian monuments of square and Uyghur-Mongolian writing and draws conclusions about the ways of phonological transmission of Chinese vocabulary in the Middle Mongolian language. E. Y. Kharkova (St. Petersburg Institute of Philology of the Russian Academy of Sciences) presented the report "The tradition of studying Indo-Tibetan grammar in Tibet".

The demonstration of illustrative material was accompanied by a report by D. V. Ivanov, a researcher at the Kunstkamera, on Kalmyk icons in the collection of the MAE RAS, in which the speaker analyzed some features of the iconography of Kalmyk Buddhist paintings, including the nature of the composition of Kalmyk Buddhist painting scrolls. D. V. Ivanov noted the differences between Kalmyk khadaks used in tanka and the actual Mongolian and Tibetan ones

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by their composition, color, and technique of artistic stitching. He also noted a deviation from the canon in the iconography of deities.

The current state of Mongolian studies and Tibetology was discussed in the reports of I. V. Kulganek (St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences) on new works on Mongolian studies in Russia and Mongolia published in 2006, and P. L. Grokhovsky (St. Petersburg State University) on the main tasks of studying the Tibetan classical language at the present stage.

It is gratifying that the conference was attended by many young and future scientists-both those who recently defended their PhD theses and those who are on the threshold of this stage of their scientific career. Thus, Yu. V. Boltach (St. Petersburg Institute of Physical Education of the Russian Academy of Sciences) devoted her report to the Korean Buddhist historian Kakhun, author of "Biographies of worthy monks of the country to the east of the Sea", in which she set herself not so much a source study as a hermeneutical task-to reconstruct the biography of this Buddhist figure, trying not only to find relevant information about It is also possible to fully interpret rather concise quotations in the monuments of medieval literature. She succeeded to the full extent.

The conference was attended by graduate students of St. Petersburg. FIV RAS B. S. Menyaev, K. V. Edleeva and the youngest participant - Master's student of St. Petersburg. State Institution D. A. Nosov. With their reports, they organically continued the literary studies block started by Associate Professor of the Department of Mongolian Philology of St. Petersburg State University M. P. Petrova, who presented her observations on the "haiku" genre in modern Mongolian poetry.

The reports presented at the P. K. Kozlov Museum, which in one way or another focused on travel and travelers, as well as the current state of Buddhism, were met with lively interest and caused discussion. This was facilitated by the use of a computer video sequence, which made it possible to show the subject of the study more clearly. Thus, the report of the director of the museum-apartment P. K. Kozlov L. Ya. Andreev "Photography in Russian expeditions in Central Asia of the XIX-early XX century: G. Tsybikov and O. Norzunov - the first photographers of Tibet" was accompanied by a display of photographs of famous monasteries of Tibet, sometimes taken by travelers in life-threatening conditions and which have long become unique. The video was also shown during the presentation of V. L. Uspensky (St. Petersburg Institute of Physical Education of the Russian Academy of Sciences) about the Badgar Monastery (in Chinese-Wudangzhao), one of the largest centers of religious art and education in Inner Mongolia, built in the early XVIII century in the Tibetan style. In 2005, the speaker visited this monastery, which is recognized by the Government of the People's Republic of China as a cultural monument of national significance. Equally interesting was the video sequence in the message of I. N. Selivanova (St. Petersburg. International All-Buryat festival "Altargana 2006" as a factor of preserving Buryat culture.

The block of reports on modern problems of Buddhism was presented by the reports of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation .G. Banaeva (Moscow) on the religious life of the Buryats of Moscow, M. N. Kozhevnikova (St. Petersburg) - on the versions of Buddhist education-the Four truths in the Western world, M. Broder (Tallinn) - on the Buddhist brotherhood in Estonia, E. V. Asalkhanova (St. Petersburg) - on the reconstruction of the St. Petersburg Buddhist temple, O. S. Khizhnyak (St. Petersburg) - on the use of European concepts in the study of Buddhism. The topic of travel was covered by the reports of T. Y. Gnatyuk (St. Petersburg) - about the two-humped camel as the main vehicle in Central Asian expeditions and the message of V. Y. Zhukov (St. Petersburg) - about the role of Mongolia in the life and work of S. A. Kondratiev, a member of the expedition of P. K. Kozlov in 1923-1926.

Awards events were held within the framework of the conference. The son of the recently deceased leading Mongolian ethnographer of Russia, who worked in the Kunstkamera named after him throughout his life. V. I. Viktorov was awarded the diploma of Honorary Doctor of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. A. I. Andreev, director of the museum-apartment of P. K. Kozlov, was awarded the title of Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Buryatia for his great achievements in the study of the Buryat people and for his active and fruitful work scientific and educational activities.

The so-called cultural program of the conference was also interesting. On the first day after the evening session, participants and guests of the conference were offered a tour of the halls with expositions of the State Hermitage Museum's Oriental Department - Mongolia, Tibet, Ancient China, and Xinjiang. On the second day, the participants were received by the rector of the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg "Datsan Gunzechoinei" - until recently the only such temple in the European part of Russia, the initiator of the construction and organizer of the gathering

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funds for the construction of which were made at the beginning of the XX century by Agvan Dorzhiev, who became the first rector of this church. Currently, services and classes for monks and lay people have been resumed here, printed materials are being published, and restoration works have been launched to recreate the interior of the temple.

The documentary film "Tsanid-khambo Aghvan Dorzhiev" directed by Yu. In thirty minutes, the viewer has the opportunity to trace the entire life and creative path of Agvan Dorzhiev from the time of his departure to Tibet to study at a Buddhist monastery to his return at the end of his life to his native Buryat village of Atsagat. There are unique images of the first divine service in St. Petersburg's still unfinished Buddhist temple, held in 1913, which was attended by well - known scientists and researchers of Central Asia, led by P. K. Kozlov, and shows acts of vandalism in the 1920s and 1930s - the destruction of Buryat datsans and Orthodox churches. For the first time, a film panorama of Tibetan monasteries is given, apparently taken by one of the first Soviet expeditions that reached Lhasa in 1924, led by S. S. Borisov. The viewer sees footage of the first council of Buddhists held in 1927. The film gives a speech to scientists, researchers of Buddhism in Russia (A. A. Terentyev, E. E. Bakayeva) and Russian-Tibetan political relations (A. I. Andreev, G. Sh. Dordzhieva), as well as contemporary figures of Buddhism in Russia: B. Budaev, B. B. Badmaev, T. R. Tsempilov. The film about Aghvan Dorzhiev was made by order of the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography.

On the last day, the conference participants attended an ethnic music concert, which was attended by students and postgraduates of the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the vocal and instrumental ensemble "Namgar", which in Tibetan means" white khadak " - a headscarf as the most respectful sign of respect shown to a guest.

The conference demonstrated the great success of Russian Mongolian studies and Tibetology in studying the life path and creative heritage of one of the remarkable sons of the Buryat people - Agvan Dorzhiev. In addition, she made it clear how great are the potential opportunities of Russian scientists in the development of priority areas of Oriental science, which have always been and remain fundamental research.

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