Lévi, Sylvain

Lévi, Sylvain

(born March 26, 1863, Paris, France—died Oct. 30, 1935, France) French scholar of Eastern religion, literature, and history. He taught at the Sorbonne (1889–94) and later for many years at the Collège de France (1894–1935). In 1929, with Takakusu Junjiro, he published a classic dictionary of Buddhism. His other writings include the standard treatise The Indian Theater (1890), Nepal (1905–08), and India and the World (1926); he also carried out pioneering studies of the Tocharian languages.