Christopher I. Beckwith

{{short description|American linguist}}

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| name = Christopher I. Beckwith

| image = Christopher I. Beckwith Profile.png

| caption = Beckwith in 2010

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1945|10|23}}

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| nationality = American

| occupation = Philologist, linguist

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| workplaces = Indiana University Bloomington

| main_interests = Central Eurasian studies

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Christopher I. Beckwith (born October 23, 1945) is an American philologist and distinguished professor in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana.{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~ceus/faculty/beckwith.shtml |title=Christopher Beckwith: Faculty: Department of Central Eurasian Studies |publisher=Indiana.edu |date=2009-08-06 |access-date=2012-09-19 |archive-date=2015-12-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206171141/http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eceus/faculty/beckwith.shtml |url-status=dead }}

He has a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese from Ohio State University (1968), a Master of Arts in Tibetan from Indiana University Bloomington (1974) and a Doctor of Philosophy in Inner Asian Studies from Indiana University (1977).

Beckwith, a MacArthur Fellow,MacArthur Foundation, [https://www.macfound.org/fellows/270/ "Christopher Beckwith, Philologist"], 1986. is a researcher in the field of Central Eurasian studies. He researches the history and cultures of ancient and medieval Central Asia. Concomitantly he specializes in Asian language studies and linguistics, and in the history of Central Eurasia. He teaches Old Tibetan, Central Eurasian languages, and Central Eurasian history and researches the linguistics of Aramaic, Chinese, Japanese, Koguryo, Old Tibetan, Tokharian, Old Turkic, Uzbek, and other languages.{{cite web|url=https://sgis.indiana.edu/faculty/directory/beckwith-christopher.html|title=Christopher I. Beckwith|website=Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies|access-date=2018-01-27|archive-date=2018-06-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614171724/https://sgis.indiana.edu/faculty/directory/beckwith-christopher.html|url-status=dead}}

His best-known works include Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia and Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Greek Buddha examines links between very early Buddhism and the philosophy of Pyrrho, an ancient Greek philosopher who accompanied Alexander the Great on his Indian campaign. The book is noted for its challenging and iconoclastic approach to multiple issues in the development of early Buddhism, Pyrrhonism, Daoism, Jainism and the Śramaṇa movement.Beckwith, C. I., Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015). Empires of the Silk Road is a rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of Central Eurasia.Rothstein, E., [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/arts/design/13silk.html "Information Highway: Camel Speed but Exotic Links"], The New York Times, November 12, 2009. Beckwith's methodologies and interpretations concerning early Buddhism, inscriptions, and archaeological sites have been criticized by other scholars, such as Johannes Bronkhorst,{{cite book |last1=Bronkhorst |first1=Johannes |title=How the Brahmins Won |date=21 March 2016 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-31551-8 |pages=483–489 |url=https://brill.com/display/title/33009?language=en |access-date=21 March 2016 |language=en |chapter=How the Brahmins Won: From Alexander to the Guptas}} Osmund Bopearachchi,{{cite journal |last1=Osmund |first1=Bopearachchi |title=Reviews |journal=Ancient West & East |date=2016 |volume=15|pages=303–486 |doi=10.2143/AWE.15.0.3167478 |url=https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?id=3167478&url=article.php}} Stephen BatchelorStephen Batchelor "Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's encounter with early Buddhism in central Asia", Contemporary Buddhism, 2016, pp 195-215 and Charles Goodman.Charles Goodman, "Neither Scythian nor Greek: A Response to Beckwith's Greek Buddha and Kuzminski's "Early Buddhism Reconsidered"", Philosophy East and West, University of Hawai'i Press Volume 68, Number 3, July 2018 pp. 984-1006 According to Patrick Olivelle, Beckwith's theory about Ashoka is "an outlier and no mainstream Ashokan scholar would subscribe to that view."{{cite book | last=Olivelle | first=Patrick | title=Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King | publisher=Yale University Press | date=2024 | page=xxviii | isbn=978-0-300-27000-6 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TE3gEAAAQBAJ}}