Lev Tolstoy and Buddhism

The topic of the article is large, diverse, and yet little developed. The reasons for its underdevelopment are quite clear. Any serious study of the subject requires erudition in two quite distant areas of knowledge: "Tolstoy Studies" (and Russian Studies in general) on the one hand, and in Buddhist Studies (in German Buddhismusforschung, in French etudes bouddhiques) (2) on the other. The combination of these two types of scholarship in one academic is improbable. Therefore, a deep study of the subject requires the cooperation of at least two (and sometimes more) scientists (3). We do not claim to quite profound erudition neither in "Tolstoy Studies" nor in Buddhist Studies, although have tried to investigate both. This article should be considered as a kind of "overview", which implies in the future more carefully prepared "study" of the subject.