Richard Geoffrey Salomon

Background

Richard Geoffrey Salomon was born on July 12, 1948, in New York City, New York, United States, to George and Mathilde (Loewen) Salomon.

Education

In 1970, Salomon received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1975.

Career

From 1975 to 1976, Salomon was a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, and, from 1979 to 1980, he was an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Then, Salomon joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Literature in 1981, advancing to an Associate Professor in 1986, then a Professor in 1994 within the same field. He also was a Professor in the Department of Asian Languages at William P. and Ruth Gerberding University.

His publications include Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages (1998), Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhāra: The British Library Kharoṣṭhī Fragments (1999), A Gāndhārī Version of the Rhinoceros Sūtra (2000), and Buddhist Texts from Ancient Gandhāra: Introduction and Translations (forthcoming).

Achievements

• Professor Salomon is a leading figure in the field of early Buddhist studies and serves as the University of Washington Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project and as general editor of the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts series, published by the University of Washington Press.
  
  Salomon has published over 130 documents. His most renowned work is on the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered, which date from the 1st century B.C.E. to the 3rd century C.E. One of the birch bark manuscripts was acquired by the University of Washington Libraries in 2002, and has contributed to the ongoing Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project shared with the British Library. Recent accomplishments include his election for President of the American Oriental Society (April 2014), being selected to hold the William P. and Ruth Gerberding University Professorship after recognition of "exceptional contributions and accomplishment" within his field (July 2015), and the Puget Sound Association of Phi Beta Kappa awarding Salomon with the Humanities Achievement Award for research of the Gandhāran manuscripts (2016). He also was awarded the 2020 Khyentse Foundation Prize for Outstanding Buddhist Translation for his book, The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhāra: An Introduction with Selected Translations. It also won the Prix de la Fondation Collette Caillat Prize in 2019.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Gandhari Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra

    (A Gandhari Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra examines in de...)

    2000
  • Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhara

    (As the Dead Sea scrolls have changed our understanding of...)

    1999
  • Indian Epigraphy

    (This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptio...)

    1998
  • Two Gandhari Manuscripts of the "Songs of Lake Anavatapta" 2008

Views

Richard Geoffrey Salomon's field of teaching and research was Sanskrit language and literature. Other research and teaching interests include Prakrit/Middle Indo-Aryan studies, epigraphy and paleography in Indo-Aryan languages, ancient Indian history, and the history of writing systems in India.

Membership

Salomon was a member of the Association of Asian Studies, American Numis Society, Numismatic Society of India, Epigraphical Society of India, Royal Asiatic Society of London.

• chairman of South Asia section

  American Oriental Society

  1985 - 1988

Interests

• carpentry, home remodeling, antique cars, fishing

Connections

On June 7, 1970, Salomon married Carol Goldberg. He has one child, Jesse M. Salomon.

Father:

George Salomon

Mother:

Mathilde (Loewen) Salomon

Spouse:

Carol Goldberg

Daughter:

Jesse M. Salomon

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series (Volume 198) brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010