MASPERO, HENRI (1883–1945), French Sinologist and pioneer of Daoist studies. Son of the Egyptologist Gaston Maspero, Henri Maspero did his first research in 1904 in Cairo on the financial system of ancient Egypt. In 1907 he obtained his licence en droit and his diploma in Chinese. From 1908 to 1920, he was a member of the École Française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) and was stationed in Hanoi, whence he traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and China. He was in Beijing during the winter of 1908–1909, at the time of the death of Emperor Tezong and the Dowager Empress Cixi, and he witnessed some of the ensuing revolutionary agitation. His research and publications covered an amazing range of subjects: the administrative geography of ancient Indochina, the beginnings of Buddhism in China, Chinese epigraphy, history of law, architecture, art, and astronomy, as well as linguistics. His articles on the Thai languages and on the...