Eric Douglas Grinstead (30 July 1921 – November 2008) was a New Zealand sinologist and Tangutologist, who was best known for his analysis of the Tangut script.
After graduating he worked as assistant keeper in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts at the British Museum.
[6] In the late 1960s Lokesh Chandra invited Grinstead to catalogue a large collection of about 15,000 photographs and photocopies of Tangut Buddhist texts that had been acquired by his father, the famous Sanskrit scholar Raghu Vira (died 1963), during visits to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China during the 1950s.
With the support of the Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies (where Grinstead was now working) and with funding from the Tuborg Foundation, a plan was put into place to preserve and publish this collection of Tangut texts.
[10] Analysis of the Tangut script is a version of a PhD dissertation that Grinstead submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen on 29 November 1971, and which he defended on 30 January 1973.