The staff of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences has suffered an irreparable loss. On August 29, 2009, an outstanding expert on the Buddhist written heritage - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor Valery Isaevich Rudoy passed away.

Valery Isaevich is widely known as a brilliant translator, commentator and researcher of the classics of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy-Vasubandhu, Patanjali, Vyasa, Vachaspati-Mishra. With the departure of Valery Isaevich, Russian Oriental studies lost a major Sanskrit scholar, a modern leader of the St. Petersburg Buddhist School created by F. I. Shcherbatsky and S. F. Oldenburg.

V. I. Rudoy lived a happy and dignified life as a talented intellectual, completely devoted to science. He was born on February 6, 1940 in Cherkassy, Ukraine, in the family of a metallurgical engineer. Rudy spent his early years in Uzbekistan, in the city of Samarkand, where he first came into close contact with the culture of the East and became interested in Oriental languages.

In 1962, Valery Isaevich graduated from the Eastern Faculty of Leningrad State University, having received a fundamental training in the field of Indian history and Sanskrit studies

page 212
and New Indian languages. He began studying the Buddhist written heritage and the works of the founders of the St. Petersburg Buddhist School, entering full-time university postgraduate studies in the same year.

In 1964, Valery Isaevich was sent by the State Committee for Economic Relations to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where for three years he worked as a simultaneous translator from the Urdu language.

In 1969, after completing his post-graduate studies, V. I. Rudy was assigned to the LO staff of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences), where he worked successfully until his untimely death.

Valery Isaevich's life's work was to revive the scientific priorities of the St. Petersburg Buddhist School. At first alone, and later with students and colleagues, he resumed work on the main research project of the school - the introduction to scientific circulation of the 8-volume treatise "Encyclopedia of Buddhist Canonical Philosophy" ("Abhidharmakosha") Vasubandhu (IV-V centuries). V. I. Rudoy was the first in the world science to start working with the original Sanskrit text of this greatest monument of Buddhist philosophical thought discovered in 1935. Thanks to his dedicated efforts, Russian Oriental studies now have a complete annotated translation of the Abhidharmakoshi, which was first translated from Sanskrit into Russian. The publication of this work was started in 1990 and is nearing completion.

In 1980, Valery Isaevich defended his PhD thesis " Some questions of Abhidharma structure and terminology (research, translation of the text and Sanskrit-Tibetan-Chinese terminological correspondences)". In 1990, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The topic of his doctoral dissertation was "Theoretical and methodological problems in the study of Indian classical religious and philosophical texts".

V. I. Rudy's innovative contribution to the theory and practice of collective research of philosophical monuments of early medieval India was embodied in the monographs " Classical Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and Vyasa's Commentary "(1992)," Buddhist Cosmology "(1994)," The Buddhist View of the World "(1994)," Fundamentals of the Buddhist Worldview" (1995), "Introduction to Buddhism" (1999), " Classical Buddhist Philosophy "(1999), " Categories of Buddhist Culture "(2000), " The Doctrine of Karma "(2000), " Yoga: Patanjali, Vyasa, Vachaspati-mishra, Vasubandhu "(2002), " The Doctrine of Affects and the Paths of a Noble Personality "(2006)," Entering Nirvana "(2006)," Cosmos and Karma: An Introduction to Buddhist Culture " (2009).

In 2008, Valery Isaevich was awarded the academic title of professor in the specialty "Historiography, source studies and methods of historical research". As a scientist, he was highly respected and respected by his colleagues.

Valery Isaevich Rudoy completed his career in the prime of his creative powers, at the peak of exceptionally fruitful research and teaching activities. He knew about the impending parting from his favorite business, his native institute, colleagues and students. Struggling with a deadly illness, Valery Isaevich continued to work on editing a collective monograph on the history of the St. Petersburg Buddhist School.

Valery Isaevich was a courageous and extremely modest man. He was imprinted in the memory of his colleagues as they saw him in an ordinary working environment-cheerful, cheerful, in love with his profession.

The name of Valery Isaevich Rudy and his works will forever remain in the history of Russian Oriental studies.

Permanent link to this publication: