Sergey Pahomov, Alexey Rakhmanin, Roman Svetlov
The Scientific Legacy of Evgeny Torchinov and His Typology of Religions
Sergey Pakhomov-Associate Professor and Lecturer, Department of Eastern Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Saint Petersburg State University, sarpa68@mail.ru
Alexey Rakhmanin-Associate Professor and Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology, Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities. rabox@mail.ru
Roman Svetlov - Professor, Department of the History of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, Saint Petersburg State University. spatha@mail.ru
Ten years passed after the death of outstanding Russian sinologist and religious studies scholar Evgeny Torchinov. In this paper the authors conceptualize his life and career and his academic methodology. Monograph "Religions of the World: Experience of the Transcendence: Transpersonal States and Psychotechnique" (1997) takes a unique place in the legacy of Torchinov. Here he introduces a new conception based on transpersonal psychology of Stanislaw Grof The perinatal and transpersonal experiences are the foundation of religion and religious experience. Torchinov offers an intuitive understanding of deep religious feelings by means of experimental science. Torchinov's model is not a way of interpretation of religion as such, but of specific parts of religious traditions. The benefits of his ideas are in limited, quite concise areas of its applicability. Torchinov believed that his concept is replacing reductionist views, essentially sociological ones.
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Keywords: E.Torchinov, religious studies, transpersonal psychology, religious experience, Oriental studies.
July 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of Evgeny Torchinov's death. A popular lecturer, an excellent Sinologist, the author of works on Taoism and Buddhism recognized by the scientific community, he is also known as the author of the controversial book "Religions of the World. The experience of the beyond", where, as stated in the annotation to it, "an attempt was made to present religion as a holistic psychological phenomenon."
The authors of this article believe that familiarity with the life, scientific and spiritual path of E. A. Torchinov allows us to better understand the features of his research strategies, including the scientific methodology of his "Religions of the World", as well as Oriental and religious studies works.
Evgeny Torchinov was born on August 22, 1956 in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz), and spent his childhood near Saratov (in Volsk), where he graduated from high school. At the age of thirteen, he developed a keen interest in Chinese subjects, which determined his future career. In 1973-1978. Torchinov studied Sinology at the Eastern Faculty of Leningrad State University (Department of Chinese Philology), graduating with honors. He considered T. N. Nikitina and V. V. Petrov, teachers of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, to be his teachers. 1 Later, L. N. Menshikov also had a significant influence on him.
Becoming interested in Buddhism, Torchinov took an active part in the meetings of the Student society for the study of Eastern philosophy, which were held at the Faculty of Philosophy of Leningrad State University under the leadership of the famous future Buddhist A. A. Terentyev. Buddhism largely influenced Torchinov's worldview. He was formally initiated into the Brigun Kagyu School of Tibet; one of his mentors (Taiwanese teacher Xinyun) was of the Chan tradition, and he described himself as a supporter of the "extra-sectarian Mahayana"2. In addition to Buddhism, Evgeny Alekseevich was fond of yoga, both theoretical and practical-
Kiy E. A. About 1. scientific heritage of E. A. Torchinov//Religious studies. 2004-N1. P. 4.
Vorob'eva M. V. 2. "Let me be a medicine..." / / Religious Studies. 2004-N1. P. 33.
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on the theoretical side, although over time the practice has moved aside. Subsequently, the range of his scientific interests expanded even further: mystical and esoteric movements around the world, archaic traditions, altered states of consciousness, mystical experience, and various religious trends. He absorbed the most diverse material, read a lot, met with followers of various beliefs and traditions, while always showing benevolence and respect for the religious worldview of others, even if he did not share it himself.
In 1981 - 1984, Torchinov worked as a researcher at the State Museum of Religion and Atheism, and then, until 1994, at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1994, he defended his doctoral thesis on Taoism. From that time until the end of his life, he taught at the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University. His lectures on Taoism, Buddhism, Indian religions, and esoteric traditions have always been very successful. In addition to teaching, he had the idea of a large, ambitious project, which he implemented in 1998. We are talking about the creation of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies of the East at the Faculty of Philosophy, which attracted his friends and colleagues to teach, united by the fact that they graduated from the Eastern Faculty of Leningrad University at different times (the department, which was headed by Evgeny Alekseevich himself almost until his death, exists to this day). In recent years, he has traveled extensively around the world, speaking at conferences, lecturing at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), and working in libraries (Paris).
The organizational gift of E. A. Torchinov was manifested in a variety of areas. Thus, he was one of the founders of the St. Petersburg branch of the international society "Fo Guang" ("Light of the Buddha"), established in 1993, which was engaged in the dissemination of knowledge about Buddhism, which he headed until 1998; since 1996, he organized events at the Faculty of Philosophy under the auspices of the scientific seminar "Vostok", inviting leading orientalists of St. Petersburg to speak; approximately during the same period, he initiated the holding of annual Buddhist conferences, which gathered almost the entire flower of St. Petersburg Buddhology and could become the largest thematic discussion platform in the Russian space, which, unfortunately, was not destined to come true.
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In the 1990s, E. A. Torchinov became seriously interested in transpersonal research: he studied the works of St. Grof and his followers, correlated them with his own religious experience, and took part in relevant scientific events or acted as their organizer. Grof's "Extended Cartography of Consciousness", as we will see, had a definite impact on the psychological and phenomenological concept of religious experience developed by Torchinov. It should be noted that many of the current Russian fans of" transpersonal psychology " turned to it precisely because of the works and lectures of Evgeny Alekseevich.
Torchinov left behind a rich legacy in the form of books, numerous articles, courses read, and numerous students. For those who knew Evgeny Alekseevich, his inimitable charm, excellent erudition, willingness to sacrifice time and effort to help other people, his death was a heavy blow.
Perinatal and transpersonal experiences as the basis of religion
E. A. Torchinov's fundamental monograph "Religions of the World" occupies a unique place both in his creative heritage and in the history of Russian religious studies. Its publication was associated not so much with a revision of the Russian religious studies that had hardly developed by that time, but with a surge of public interest in the theory of religious studies. It is no exaggeration to say that neither before nor since has there been a more significant generalizing work in the Russian science of religion. Its significance is not limited to the academic tradition, but extends to the public perception of the science of religion: thanks to the" Religions of the World", comparative religious studies has become the subject of wider interest. After giving the most generalized "portrait of Torchinov's concept" and evaluating its character, we will try to discover its prerequisites and place in modern religious studies, and then turn to the author's specific historical research.
The most famous thesis of Torchinov, which has caused the most heated discussions in religious and Oriental circles , is the statement that the basis of religion and religious experience (for Torchinov, the social side of religion is not so important,
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and without such experience and generally remains beyond the scope of scientific interest) are perinatal and transpersonal experiences 3. Perinatal experiences form the core of the mystery cults of the ancient Mediterranean, shamanism, and also - with some reservations-the Taoist tradition, transpersonal experiences form religions with "advanced psychotechnics", which Torchinov characterized as "religions of pure experience", which in turn fall into biblical religions and religions of Indian origin. It is important here that we are talking about the most "recognizable" - prototypical - features of the respective religions, which allow us to use elements of the classified reality itself as classification criteria.
The very terminology used by Torchinov refers us to the psychology of the twentieth century. In our opinion, the remarkable isomorphism between the differentiation of psychological trends, on the one hand, according to the criterion of their effectiveness in the study of consciousness (Freudianism, which studies the unconscious, Jung's approach, which focuses on a deeper level of the unconscious - transcultural archetypes, and Grof's deep psychology, which examines the most hidden level of consciousness), on the other hand, deserves a separate study. the same-those layers of the unconscious that become classification criteria 4. I would like to suggest that the identification of transpersonal experiences and the formation of depth psychology were the result of the evolutionary complexity of psychology itself-simply because each scientific discipline requires its own subject.
According to Torchinov, the unified psychophysiological basis of transpersonal experience also makes religious experience as a whole unified, and that is why specific religions are considered as such.-
Torchinov E. A. 3. Religions of the world: experience of the beyond. Transpersonal states and psychotechnics. St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1997. p. 41. And here is how E. A. Torchinov defined religion: "Let us make a reservation that this definition makes sense only within the framework of the paradigm we propose and does not exclude other possible definitions of religion developed in other paradigms (for example, in the framework of the sociology of religion) and for other purposes. Here and throughout this work, religion will be understood as a complex of beliefs, beliefs, doctrines, elements of worship, ritual, and other forms of practice that are based on transpersonal experiences of one type or another and involve a mindset to reproduce this basic experience" (Ibid. P. 64).
4. See ibid., pp. 30-31.
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emotional systems centered on mystical experience can serve as effective models in comparative research.
Certainly, for Torchinov, Buddhism became a model for comparisons, distinctions and stratification of different types of explication of religious experience in the form of historical religious systems. With this (psychophysiological) approach, the Buddhist doctrine has the most important advantage over others, which are forced to describe cosmology, ontology, etc. in the language of human experience. Due to the fact that Buddhism understands all this as a manifestation of the deep-psychic sphere, the language of description turns out to be the language of the object itself.
Despite the proximity of the transpersonal base of "biblical" religions to religions of Indian origin, Torchinov sees in the history of Western beliefs an example of" dogmatization "of" pure experience", taking it beyond the necessary means of salvation, and therefore excluding the skills of acquiring transpersonal states from religious pragmatics. This dogmatization leads to the fact that although mystical experience is not denied by the biblical religions, it becomes the lot of the chosen ones, is censored, and the preaching of the creators of these religions (especially Moses and Christ) turns into a doctrinal text. According to Torchinov, this is the reason for the emergence of a conflict between faith and knowledge in Europe, as well as the formation of a secular consciousness. The East did not know all this 5. Torchinov sees the "plasticity" of cosmological and social representations of the East as the reason why these conflicts (faith and science, church and secular) are not challenges for Eastern civilization.6
This indicates that E. A. Torchinov's concept was aimed not at unifying all types of religious experience (to the extent that they are related to transpersonal experience), but at trying to differentiate them in connection with historical forms of explication of this experience.
One of the confirmations of this thesis is Torchinov's interpretation of the "axial time" doctrine. In his opinion, the famous idea of K. Jaspers should be understood as an indication of that
5. Ibid., pp. 291-298.
6. Ibid., pp. 60, 72-75, etc. In the work" Ways of Philosophy of the East and West " E. A. Torchinov even suggests that non-European (meaning Eastern) philosophical traditions "can become a medicine for European (Western) philosophy" (Torchinov E. A. Ways of Philosophy of the East and West, St. Petersburg, 2005, p. 37).
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the historical period when most ancient cultures (Greece, the Middle East, India, China) reached the highest expression of "perinatal-psychic experience", which turned out to be "fraught with transpersonal experiences"7. These same experiences become the basis for the formation of religions of "pure experience". Thus, we see a clear indication of the evolution of religious experience and its historical differentiation.
The same differentiation characterizes Torchinov's attitude to proto-religious, quasi-religious, and near-religious forms of consciousness. In" Religions of the World", for example, magism is clearly distinguished from religion, which is understood as some archaic parallel to modern technologies based on scientific views of the world. The variability of the mythological narrative is also clearly stated and the criteria by which some of the "secondary" mythological traditions can be attributed to the sphere of religion (in the broad sense of the word)are singled out.8
If we talk not about fixing differences, but about the comparative perspective of Torchinov's concept, then it allowed him to discover a number of unexpected parallels. In our opinion, the hypothesis about the typological proximity of Kabbalah and a number of Eastern traditions was most successfully worked out.9 This hypothesis had an unexpected result in the form of artistic creativity of E. A. Torchinov himself.10
Another subject of comparative research (in which one of the authors of this article was planned to participate) was to be Neoplatonism and the Yogachara school. Torchinov's death did not allow this project to be fully implemented.
How to evaluate the significance of E. A. Torchinov's concept? In our view, this is an attempt to develop a middle-level theory that is sufficiently sensitive to empirical material and yet abstract enough to include all the actual diversity of religious phenomena. Torchinov was able to demonstrate the heuristic capabilities of these approaches,
7. Torchinov E. A. Religions of the world, p. 46. See p. 84.
8. Ibid., pp. 48-58.
9. Ibid., pp. 299-322.
Torchinov E. A. 10. Mysterious Female: A Transpersonal Novel, St. Petersburg: Humanitarian Academy, 2013.
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which in fact were never relevant in Western European religious studies, since they were developed in research areas that were very indirectly related to the classical problems of Religious studies/Religionswissenschaft in the second half of the XX century. Today, the methodology to which Torchinov attached such great importance can hardly be perceived with the same enthusiasm. At the very least, it is "only one of" a long series of explanatory models developed outside of religious studies, but unexpectedly turned out to be useful at the time of the formation of the religious studies paradigm.
Perhaps this aspect is fundamentally important for understanding the real significance of Torchinov's works not only in the narrow historical, but also in the broader epistemological horizon of religious studies. In fact, Evgeny Alekseevich tried to offer an intuitive understanding of deep religious experiences by means of experimental science, thereby justifying the view that the deep unity of religious experience is the root that is sought, thanks to which disparate phenomena are formed into a whole, called "religion". However, there is a fine line here that often escapes researchers who uncritically imitate Torchinov. In his concept, we are dealing with a complication, not a simplification of reality: religions are united by a common religious experience, the essence of which is a deep transpersonal experience. This means that in order to interpret a religious tradition, we must understand its religious experience, and the latter, in turn, is accessible to understanding (psychological according to the method) only if we refer to the deep experience of selected mystics.
Thus, E. A. Torchinov's concept is not about religion, religious tradition, or religious experience. The subject of this concept is the religious itself in religion, what makes a particular experience religious, a certain deep religious experience that, being transpersonal, can be investigated psychologically and, being a religious experience, can be intuitively recognized as such. On the one hand, we observe a certain reductionism here, since we are dealing with an attempt to psychophysiologically substantiate the invariance of religious experiences. But on the other hand, this reductionism looks more like
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It is more effective than the sociological method, since consciousness is the reality to which the peculiarities of the religious are reduced.11
The scheme proposed by E. A. Torchinov is a way of interpreting not" religion in general", but specific fragments of a religious tradition, which cannot be reduced to mysticism, "just as a house is not reduced to a foundation, but nevertheless rests on it" 12.
To a certain extent, the latter circumstance looks like a significant drawback of the concept: a middle-level theory should be strong enough to explain all phenomena that fall into a limited class. However, it seems to us that this shortcoming can hardly be attributed directly to Torchinov's theory (as opposed to his followers, and often epigones), since it was developed as a tool for explaining a particular class of religious phenomena. In turn, the idea of the mystical component of religious tradition as the purest or most ideal representation of the tradition as a whole did not have a dogmatic impact on Torchinov's concrete historical research. The advantages of E. A. Torchinov's concept are not unlimited, but, on the contrary, very limited, but quite clear range of its applicability.
E. A. Torchinov's concept in the context of foreign religious studies
A special topic is the analysis of the prerequisites for the concept of E. A. Torchinov and its links with foreign religious studies and Oriental studies.
The task of "critically analyzing the very foundations of the methodology of religious studies research" 14 was somewhat mitigated by the fact that by the time Religions of the World was published, religious studies was neither methodologically nor ideologically unified. On the one hand, there was a complex set of ideas about religion that was characteristic of the recent Soviet past, which included the following elements:-
11. For criticism of the sociological approach, see Torchinov E. A. Religions of the world. pp. 65-66.
12. Ibid., p. 25.
13. Ibid., p. 28.
14. Ibid., p. 2.
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On the one hand, it was perceived as an anachronism; on the other hand, there were many works of a descriptive nature that researchers agreed to include in the range of their attention mainly because of the significance of the empirical material presented in them. There was no theoretical basis on which such studies could appear as fragments of a single whole. The autonomous and independent existence of empirical works and a theoretical concept that has lost its explanatory power could only be overcome in the form of comparative historical research.
A number of initial assumptions that led to the formation of E. A. Torchinov's concept could be considered to be caused solely by historical circumstances and vicissitudes external to the theoretical search, if not for the history of religious studies itself, which demonstrates the formation of completely similar concepts in similar conditions.
The most obvious element in the development of fundamentally new views on the nature of religion was the leveling of the prevailing set of ideas in Soviet science, usually characterized simply as "Marxism". E. A. Torchinov proposed his concept not in spite of the Marxist one (whatever that word might mean), but along with it, and its novelty consisted not so much in dry methods The analysis of empirical data is as much about the ideological side of the idea itself: religion was no longer considered primarily as a social phenomenon.
Torchinov himself believed that the concept he proposed was replacing reductive, essentially sociological views, and, accordingly, the foundation of a new religious studies concept should be found in a scientific tradition that is largely opposed to sociology, namely psychology.
Transpersonal psychology, which Torchinov preferred in his theoretical developments, was also the result of a combination of several diverse circumstances, each of which deserves, if not a separate study, then at least a mention. First of all, this concept arises due to the efforts of A. Maslow aimed at transforming the already classical humanistic psychology into a certain generalizing theory. At the same time, the clinical significance of transpersonalism, at least at the stage of the formation of Maslow's main idea, was low. There is much evidence to support Maslow's use of the term " transperso-
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as a technical term, which at the first stage did not hide a large and serious concept; it was, in general, a correlate of the concept of "transcendent", which, due to obvious metaphysical connotations, turned out to be not quite appropriate in a psychological context.
Assuming a certain schematism, Maslow's idea can be reduced to the following statement: peak experiences are a condition and criterion for the full development of the individual, and the individual is most developed only when he experiences an extremely non-personal experience, and it is in the acquisition of such non-personal experience that the therapeutic significance of the world's religions consists.
It is very characteristic that Maslow's psychological concept, which was included with a number of reservations in all psychological concepts of the transpersonal direction, was developed as a scientific adaptation of the religious ideas of humanity. Moreover, this religious pathos often turns out to be semantically more significant in the development of the corresponding direction than empirical research, which is confirmed in the publications of the main print organ of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. In general, the work "Religions, Values and peak experiences", from which Torchinov traces the tradition of transpersonal psychology, was more of a worldview manifesto of a mystical psychologist, rather than a fragment or result of clinical research.
The attempt to mutually enrich religion and science is the most characteristic feature of subsequent transpersonal psychology. Despite all the differences in the approaches of S. Grof, K. Wilber, or M. Washburn, their subject area turns out to be not only interesting (primarily for an esoteric European audience), but also justifies the ontological obligations assumed by representatives of this direction.15 It is interesting that this, in particular, shows the ambivalence inherent in the concept of "transpersonal": on the one hand, the transpersonality of experience indicates its independence - including ontological-from the subject; on the other hand, it sets the perspective of the universal, ideal subject.
15. См. Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2006) "From Love to Evolution: Historical Turning Point in the Psychology of Religion", Archive for the Psychology of Religion 28:58. Leiden-Boston.
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The subject area, therefore, turns out to be not quite traditional for psychology: entheogens, the world of "spirits", eternal philosophy, theoretical foundations of physics, cosmology. It is interesting that religion becomes one of the phenomena that, in general, does not require explanation, since it forms part of a certain vast and whole "spectrum of consciousness", the peak, most intense states of which should be the subject of psychology.
An unconventional subject area, on the one hand, and an unconventional methodology (or set of recommendations), on the other, turn out to be necessary for each other and justify each other. The transformation of psychology into a spiritual discipline (spiritual discipline)16 gives reason for a significant number of researchers to regard the positions of supporters of the transpersonal direction as speculation 17, despite all their popularity - including at the present time.
It should be added that the 50s-60s of the XX century were a time of development and popularity, on the one hand, of comparative studies that developed on the basis of the Jungian concept, and on the other - of orientalism. It is noteworthy that "nontheistic or transpersonal spirituality" appears to be the model of religiosity for psychologists of the field we are interested in. 18 Here it should be noted that the movement for constructing a specific object of research was not new for religious studies. Perhaps the most influential version of this construction in previous studies of religion was the idea of a single mystical experience in the project of phenomenological and psychological theology (p. Otto, G. van der Leeuw, Fr. Heiler), which-of course, in the most general framework - can be attributed to the doctrine of E. A. Torchinov.
In fact, we are talking about an ideal model of a religious subject, ideal not only in the academic sense, but also in the therapeutic one. Just as the ascetic mystic is a model for the bearer of the corresponding religious tradition, the collective image of the subject of inner doing is a model for the bearer of the corresponding religious tradition.
16. Hood, R.W, Hill, P. C., Spilka, B. (2009) The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach, p. 483. New York, London.
17. Ibid., p. 310.
18. Hill, P. C. (2005) "Measurement in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: Current Status and Evaluation", in Paloutzian, R. F., Park, C. L. (eds) Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, p. 45. New York, London.
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It turns out to be a model for a modern representative of secular Europe (apparently, this is also due to the popularity of the concept of spiritual practices developed by M. Foucault and P. Ado, despite the fact that it is essentially unrelated to transpersonalism). Here we must immediately make a reservation: the ideal model of the religious subject in transpersonal psychology is no better or worse than other models, but perhaps the most powerful, because in the XX century there was no more developed concept of religious consciousness in the ideological sense, with the exception of the above-mentioned tradition of transcendental phenomenology.
It is interesting that in his late unfinished work "Ways of Philosophy of East and West"19 E. A. Torchinov addresses the questions that characterize the work of K. Wilber rather than S. Grof: there he is more interested in the" eternal philosophy of consciousness " than the physiology of consciousness, and he comes close to formulating a new concept of experience. Judging by some oral remarks, he was going to base it on A. Schopenhauer's teaching about the will of the soul.
The difficulty lies in the fact that we perceive the concept of E. A. Torchinov as religious studies. It would seem that this is obvious, since it mainly deals with religious traditions. But the evolution of Torchinov's own ideas makes adjustments: in our opinion, transpersonal psychology turned out to be an interesting tool for him as an Oriental historian.
One of the fundamental aspects of transpersonal psychology of religion is the very weak inclusion of this concept in the context of religious studies. It originated primarily as religious apologetics within psychology, including clinical psychology, rather than as a branch of religious studies. However, some historians of religion, mainly Orientalists, have unexpectedly discovered serious potential in it.
As an example, here you can point to F. B. Y. Kuiper. The Russian-speaking reader is well aware of the collection of his works
19. Some of his students - for example, P. V. Bersnev-had a hand in the formation of the corpus of which.
20. See, for example, his reference - when analyzing the essence of magical effects - to Schopenhauer's work "On the Will in nature": Torchinov E. A. Religions of the world. p. 51. See also discussion of parallels between Schopenhauer's philosophy and Kabbalah on p. 233-325 of the same book.
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"Works on Vedic mythology"21. He interpreted the cosmogonic myths of the Vedic period as a manifestation of latent memory of prenatal processes. Kuyper found a direct parallelism "between cosmogony and embryogony" 22 and explained it as "a macrocosmic projection of memories (necessarily individual) about prenatal life"23. Although the Dutch scientist spoke about his own guidelines in the study of prenatal psychology (O. Rank, N. Fodor and others), however, the most interesting for him are the interpretations of the cosmogonic world. the myth of M. Eliade. At the same time, he interprets Eliade's thesis on the identity of cosmogony and anthropogony as a confirmation of the thesis on the identity of cosmogony and embryogony. 24 Kuiper's hypothesis has attracted increased attention from a number of Orientalists. It is not for nothing that T. Y. Elizarenkova once described his article "Cosmogony and Conception" as "a leap in our ideas about Aryan cosmogony and a leap into a new field of knowledge" 25.
Kuiper's example shows that interest in prenatal processes can easily be combined with phenomenological ideas (in variant M. Eliade) and with the deep psychology of C. G. Jung. But we can see that Torchinov went much further. In its classification, the prenatal plays a not very significant role. The symbolism of the"womb" world (cf. Sloterdijk's Spharen) turned out to be too schematic and all-encompassing. Of course, it can explain some aspects of the ancient myth through "embryological" psychology, but for the analysis of the "religious as such" Torchinov draws on the perinatal and transpersonal, far beyond the scope of Kuiper's approach.
E. A. Torchinov and Oriental studies
If we talk about the "historical and Oriental" works of E. A. Torchinov, then one of the main objects of his scientific research was Taoism. Being classified as "transitional"in its classification,
Trudy po vediiskoi mifologii [Works on Vedic Mythology], Moscow, 1986.
22. Ibid., p. 141.
23. Ibid., p. 144.
24. Ibid., pp. 128 et seq.
Directions of scientific creativity of F. B. Ya. Kuiper (Ibid., p. 14).
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Taoism, however, included a certain transpersonal experience, which was what Torchinov was most interested in.
Over two decades of scientific research, Torchinov wrote numerous articles on various aspects of Taoism (such as the Taoist cosmogonic doctrine, the doctrine of the "feminine", the Xuan-xue philosophy, the interaction of Buddhism and Taoism, etc.), published translations of some important Taoist monuments. In particular, for the first time in Russia, he translated Ge Hong's treatise "Baopuzi" 26 and Zhang Bo-duan's treatise "Chapters on the Insight of Truth" 27, and proposed a new interpretation of the translation of the famous "Daode Jing" 28. In Taoism, he was particularly interested in the psychotechnical, alchemical side. In the translation of Ge Hong's alchemical treatise, this "alchemical apocalypse" 29, "the doctrine of the Tao-the Way of the universe and the ways of obtaining it, alchemy and magic, medicine and astrology, the doctrine of immortals-celestials and recipes for making the elixir of eternal life"30 were analyzed. In turn, when studying the text of Zhang Bo-duan, Torchinov noted that he had established in the tradition the possibility of using the language of "external" alchemy to describe "internal" alchemy, more precisely, to describe the cultivation of the so-called "immortal embryo" in the body of a practicing adept. This "immortal embryo" perfectly correlates with the ideas of Tathagatagarbha Buddhism, which Torchinov himself shared. Zhang Bo-duan's text presents the Taoist ritual in its internalized form, emphasizing the "return to the root" of one's inner world as a self-sufficient reality.31
In general, the study of these complex writings required "addressing the question of the relationship between Taoism and science in traditional China and the Taoist doctrine of immortality and the ways to achieve it, which includes alchemy, sexual and co-ordination."-
Ge Hong. 26. Baopu tzu/Translation, preface, and comments by E. A. Torchinov, St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1999.
Zhang Bo-duan. 27. Chapters on the Insight of Truth (Wu zhen pian)/Translation, preface, and comments by E. A. Torchinov, St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1994.
Torchinov E. A. 28. Taoism. "Tao-te ching", St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie Publ., 1999.
Ge Hong. 29. Baopu-tzu. p. 4.
30. Ibid.
Zhang Bo-duan 31. / / Kitayskaya filosofiya: Entsiklopedicheskiy slovar ' [Chinese Philosophy: An Encyclopedic dictionary].
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contemplative practices, breathing and gymnastic exercises, etc. " 32. The result of this study was the work "Taoist Practices" 33, as well as translations of some erotic treatises.
In his fundamental monograph " Taoism. The experience of historical and religious studies description " Torchinov showed that Taoism is an autochthonous religion of China, which has absorbed various traditions - shamanism, magic, philosophical Taoism, the teaching of the Book of Changes 34. Turning to the history of Taoism, Torchinov suggests dividing it into two major stages: the period of formation of an integral Taoist tradition, ending with the creation of a school "Heavenly Guides" (II century AD), and the period of evolution of Taoism proper (both of these periods, in turn, are divided into a number of intermediate ones)35. The periodization noted by him in his doctoral work "reflects the connection of the history of Taoism with the main stages of the history of Chinese society" 36.
However, Torchinov does not seek to reduce the trends in the evolution of Taoism to a purely historical background. He identifies several such trends: (l) increased institutionalization and organizational integration, although this did not lead to the formation of a single "Taoist church"; (2) the influence of religious syncretism, which pushed Taoism to the sidelines of religious life; (3) the growth of spiritualization and introversion [37] (which corresponds to his interpretation of "axial time" in "Religions of the World").").
Second in order, but not in importance for Torchinov himself, the subject of his "historical" research was Buddhism. Lectures on the history of Buddhism, which he delivered with constant success in the 1990s and early 2000s at the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University, and then at the Russian Academy of Arts, were vividly expressed in one of the most popular and reprinted books by E. A. Torchino-
Kiy E. A. 32. About the scientific heritage of E. A. Torchinov//Religious studies. 2004-N1. P. 5.
Torchinov E. A. 33. Taoist practices. St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie Publ., 2004 (2nd ed.).
Torchinov E. A. 34. Taoism. Opyt istoriko-religiovedcheskogo opisaniya [Experience of historical and religious studies description]. St. Petersburg: Andreev and Sons, 1993-p. 282.
Torchinov E. A. 35. Taoism, pp. 283-284.
36. Ibid., p. 285.
37. Ibid.
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va "Introduction to Buddhology" 38. It has been published in various (including abbreviated) versions so far 39. On the basis of this work, a "Pocket Dictionary" of Buddhism 40 was also prepared.
E. A. Torchinov never concealed the fact that, due to his academic background in Sinology, he considered Buddhism primarily in the Far Eastern "strains" of this religious tradition. The most important basis for research was the translation of the sutras of Chinese Buddhism, carried out by Torchinov together with other St. Petersburg scholars, 41 as well as translations of the works of authoritative Chan patriarchs. 42
Torchinov's lectures and Buddhist works show how much he was interested in the concept of "tathagatagarbha", which, in our opinion, is directly related to his transpersonal - " phenomenological "studies of the"experience of the beyond". Torchinov's books on the history and philosophy of Buddhism are constructed in the form of a historical sketch of the Buddhist doctrine in all the originality of its destinies, interpretations and regional features. However, in our opinion, the author pays the greatest attention to the formation of "garbhic" ideas in Buddhism. From this point of view, Torchinov was mainly interested in the Mahayana philosophical schools (which, of course, played a leading role in China).
Torchinov considered and evaluated the actual cultural diversity of forms of Buddhist civilization and types of Buddhist discourse from the point of view of the unity of their doctrinal "background". The assessment of Buddhism as a religion consisting of a kind of "denominations", but not having a confessional division, is quite typical for the second half of the XX century. One can argue a lot about the degree of independence of regional Buddhist traditions and the possibility of identifying a normative core within them. Torchinov seems to have wavered between the "hard" and "soft" versions.
Torchinov E. A. 38. Introduction to Buddhology. Course of lectures, St. Petersburg, 2000.
39. See, for example. Torchinov E. A. Philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism. St. Petersburg, 2002. Torchinov E. A. Vvedenie v bududizm [Introduction to Buddhism]. SPb., 2013.
40. Buddhism. Pocket dictionary/Comp. Torchinov E. A. St. Petersburg, 2002.
41. See Selected Sutras of Chinese Buddhism/Translated by E. A. Torchinov, D. V. Popovtseva, and K. Yu. Solonina, St. Petersburg, 1999.
42. See, for example, the Fifth Chan Patriarch Hong-ren. A treatise on the basics of improving consciousness, St. Petersburg, 1994.
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O. O. Rosenberg's thesis that Buddhism is a set of traditions in which it is necessary to distinguish "folk" and "philosophical" levels 43. However, Rosenberg's clarification that the most important component of Buddhist doctrine is the theory of "dharmas", as well as his own research allowed Torchinov to form his own idea of the" heart " of Buddhism. In his opinion, it is three-part: this is philosophy, religious and doctrinal component and yoga 44. Both are particularly well illustrated by the teachings that emerged from the tathagatagarbha concept: philosophical conclusions and precocious tradition were confirmed in mystical practices. This unity of theoretical discourse and experimental confirmation was for Torchinov an additional argument in favor of not just classifying Buddhism as "religions of pure experience", but also making broad comparative generalizations based on observations of individual elements of Buddhist history. Here is just one example: the constant repetition of the mantra "Namu Amitofo" is put on a par with Hindu "japa", the Jesus prayer, Sufi practices45, that is, phenomena peculiar, in Torchinov's terminology ,to " religions with the dominance of the transpersonal element."
Nevertheless, Torchinov did not consider his research to be an exhaustive picture of the evolution of Buddhist doctrine. No wonder he wrote: "We still do not understand Buddhism as a single religious and cultural phenomenon in all its diversity, and the mosaic of individual texts and trends obscures the integrity of Buddhism, which contains all this diversity and does not exist without it." 46
The death of E. A. Torchinov interrupted not only his pedagogical, scientific, organizational and Oriental studies activities. It may have prevented an attempt to test the methodology of the "Religions of the World" more "practically" by observing a vast body of facts on the history of religions. Perhaps we would also see a consistent interpretation of transpersonal psychology through the system of views and ideas of Tathaga Buddhism-
43. See Torchinov E. A. Introduction to Buddhology, p. 210.
44. See ibid., p. 212.
45. See ibid., p. 202.
46. Ibid., p. 226.
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tagarbhi, his ideological choice in favor of which Torchinov never hid.
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Beit-Hallahmi B. (2006) "From Love to Evolution: Historical Turning Point in the Psychology of Religion", Archive for the Psychology of Religion, Vol. 28. Brill-Leiden-Boston.
Ge Hong. Baopuzi. Translation into Russian, Preface and commentary by E. A. Torchinov. SPb.: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1999.
Hill P. C. (2005) "Measurement in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality: Current Status and Evaluation", in Paloutzian, R. F., Park, C. L. (eds) Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. New York - London.
Hongren, the Fifth Chan Patriarch. Traktat ob osnovah sovershenstvovanija soznanija [Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind]. Translation into Russian, Preface and commentary by E. A. Torchinov SPb.: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1994.
Hood, R. W, Hill, PC, Spilka, B. (2009) The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. New York - London.
Izbrannye sutry kitajskogo buddizma [Selected Chinese Buddhist Sutra]. Translation into Russian by E. A. Torchinov, D. V. Popovcev, K. Ju.Solonin. SPb.: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie, 1999.
Kejper, F. B. Ja. (1986). Trudy po vedijskoj mifologii [Works on Vedic mythology]. Moscow
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