Introduction to Buddhism

Evgeny Alekseevich Torchinov — an outstanding sinologist-religion scholar, buddhologist, translator, historian of philosophy and culture of China. Candidate of historical sciences and doctor of philosophical sciences. Evgeny Alekseevich has been studying Buddhism and Daoism for many years, as well as analyzing various ancient religions, modern world religions, religious movements and sects, through which he formulated the phenomenon of "religious experience".

The book "Introduction to Buddhism" is the most popular work by Evgeny Alekseevich, based on a series of lectures he gave from 1994 to 1999 at the Faculty of Philosophy of Saint Petersburg State University. It describes in detail the history of the emergence and development of Buddhism, outlines the foundations of this teaching, presents the main schools and directions, and also examines the Buddhist traditions of Tibet, China, the Far East, and Russia. This edition also includes an appendix containing translations of key Buddhist texts by the author with annotations.