– Ocean of Knowledge, Teacher of Generations –
Merged ɣarqu-yin oron
In Memoriam Klaus Sagaster
(March 19, 1933 – November 11, 2025)
Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος.
On November 11, 2025, the eminent scholar Klaus Sagaster passed away peacefully at his home in Königswinter, near Bonn, at the age of 92, after an active life up to the very last day. In the wide field of Central Asian studies, he is recognized as a scholar of exceptional gift, immense knowledge and refined erudition. His contributions to Mongolian and Tibetan studies go far beyond the boundaries of each discipline and encompass fundamental questions of the condition humaine between the secular and sacred domains.
Klaus Sagaster was born in a community of Sudeten Germans in the town of Mimoň (German: Niemes), Česká Lípa District in the Liberec Region of then Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic, on March 19, 1933. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, the region was annexed by Nazi Germany and administered as part of the so-called Sudetenland. Klaus Sagaster began to attend elementary school in 1939 in Mimoň; in 1941 the family moved to Ústí nad Labem (German: Aussig an der Elbe); Klaus Sagaster completed elementary school in 1943 and attended secondary school there. In June 1945, the family fell victim to the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, at the time conducted by local militias, which, in Klaus Sagaster’s own words, was a terribly frightful experience from which the family only had a narrow escape. The family settled in the Sorbian village of Glinzig, near Cottbus, in the then Soviet occupation zone in Germany. In 1951, he graduated from classical high school in Cottbus, in the meantime German Democratic Republic (GDR). Driven by a keen interest in Chinese history and culture, he took up Chinese (Prof. Eduard Erkes), Tibetan (Prof. Johannes Schubert) and Mongolian (Dr. Paul Ratchnewsky) studies at the East Asian Seminar of Leipzig University in the same year, later followed by Sanskrit (Prof. Ulrich Schneider) as well as Pāli and Prākrit grammar studies (Friedrich Weller). Having decided to leave Leipzig, he went to the German National Library in Leipzig for consulting the course catalogues of West German universities in order to find a university which could offer Mongolian studies and possibly indology and sinology. He opted for Göttingen and left the GDR via Berlin where he arrived at the Marienfelde refugee transit camp in mid-March 1954. Decades later he continued to be impressed by the administrative efficiency of this institution (he revisited the place, now converted into a memorial site, more than 50 years later). Already in early May of the same year he could resume his studies, now in Göttingen, where he had the opportunity to introduce himself to Walther Heissig who accepted him as his student after an informal admission test. A life-long mutually fruitful scholarly bond was to emerge from this early encounter.
Two years later, in 1956, he was awarded a combined scholarship offered by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Government of Denmark. In Kopenhagen, he took up Mongolian studies under Kaare Thomsen, Tibetan studies under Erik Haarh and also took classes in Central Asian Turkic studies.
In 1957 he followed Heissig to Bonn. In 1964, the Seminar for Languages and Cultures of Central Asia was established with Heissig as chair. In an informal arrangement initiated by Heissig, Klaus Sagaster was charged with teaching Tibetan studies while Heissig took charge of Mongolian studies. Later, Klaus Sagaster also took up reading Mongolian classes. In 1982, Heissig retired and Klaus Sagaster became chair of the Seminar up to his retirement in 1998.
Already early in his scholarly career, Klaus Sagaster had the opportunity to travel to Asia. He participated in the 26th International Congress of Orientalists in New Delhi in January 1964. From there, he continued his voyage to the Tibetan settlements in Dharamsala where he had the chance to meet the Dalai Lama; this auspicious first encounter certainly left a lasting impression on the young Klaus Sagaster who assisted in arranging the visits of the Dalai Lama in Germany in the 1970s. Quite possibly these meetings with the Dalai Lama were a catalyst for Klaus Sagaster’s life-long reflections on the relationship between religion and state, as can be seen from two outstanding monographs, one submitted as doctoral thesis in 1960, to be published in revised form in 1969, the other submitted as postdoctoral thesis in 1976.
The subject of his doctoral thesis was a biography of Ṅag dbaṅ blo bzan č’os ldan (1642–1714), the First Changkya (lČaṅ skya) Khutuktu of Beijing, published under the title “Subud Erike. Ein Rosenkranz aus Perlen.” Being called to Beijing by the Kangxi Emperor in 1701, the First Changkya Khutuktu played a vital role as a facilitator of Manchu rule among the Mongols while at the same time persuing his genuine interest of strengthening the Lamaist Church. As Sagaster notes in the Introduction, the repercussions of the historical constellation of the diverging interests between state and religion remain to be an active focus of China’s domestic policy up to the very present. Sinor’s summary of Sagaster’s fine book is incontestable: “[H]e who thinks that he can write on early Ch’ing foreign policy, on the growth of the Lamaist Church or on Mongol history of the epoch without consulting this book is fooling himself and deceiving his readers.”
While in essence the vita of the First Changkya Khutuktu already is a practical example of the wide field of the diverging objectives of religion and state and the difficulty to reconcile these two realms of society, the concept was discussed much earlier in Mongolian history and became the subject of Klaus Sagaster’s postdoctoral thesis about the Čaγan teu͏̈ke (“Weiße Geschichte”). The relationship of secular order and sacral order, simply called ‘two systems’ or ‘two orders’, qoyar yosun / qous yosun; lugs gñis / lugs zuṅ, was a principle first documented in the 13th century. A codification of social and political reforms for a unified state system traditionally ascribed to the reign of Qubilai (1260–1294) preserved in a quasi-legal document, the Čaγan teu͏̈ke (“White History”), supposedly the earliest known Mongol work concerning the union of religion and state. The book, probably composed at the command of Qubilai, worked out by him and ‘Phags pa Lama between 1272–80, expressed the governing idea that the Mongol emperor and his lama stood as universal rulers in their respective secular and sacred domains (for an excellent summary of the concept, see Samuel M. Grupper’s review of the “Weiße Geschichte”). In Europe, a comparable constellation of rule over the secular and sacred domains was known as Caesaropapism. In his Introduction, Klaus Sagaster demonstrates a profound knowledge of ecclesiastical authority and regulations in Europe, thus revealing the universal commons of the immanent and transcendent spheres of human society between East and West. Denis Sinor’s appraisal, originally written about “Subud erike”, holds equally true for both works: “An immense amount of erudition, ingenuity and sheer work went into the preparation of this volume, a splendid example of German orientalist scholarship at its best.”
Klaus Sagaster published numerous articles on Chinggis Khan and related religious aspects. Here again, we come across the continuo of his life-long occupation with the ‘two orders’, albeit from a completely different perspective.
In the early 1980s, Klaus Sagaster spent many years researching the culture, history and oral literature of the Balti people. Frequently accompanied by his wife Ursula Sagaster who would later publish an exhibition catalogue about the Balti people, he made a number of field trips to Baltistan, the Pakistani-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan in Kashmir. He collected samples of the Gesar Epic and occupied himself with the translation and the compilation of a glossary of these specimens of oral literature in Balti, a Tibetan language retaining strong influences of old Tibetan. While Klaus did not live to see the fruition of this labour, we do know that the materials are in good hands and work in this subject will continue.
Klaus’ interests and scholarly publications cover a much wider range of subjects than touched here. He received numerous awards in recognition of his scholarly work, among them two recognitions awarded by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Being active in several learned societies (e. g. the Societas Uralo-Altaica and the Permanent International Altaistic Conference [PIAC]), he was the longest-serving active member of the PIAC and a witness of its very beginnings since the inaugural Meeting in 1958, spanning a history of 63 years with his last participation in 2021. He was awarded with the Indiana University Prize for Altaic Studies, colloquially known as “PIAC Medal”, in 2008.
Klaus Sagaster was a person of exceptional warmth and hospitality. His uncompromising rigour in scholarly dispute was most splendidly complemented by a wonderful sense of humour combined with profound modesty. Having been a guest at the Sagasters’ family home over many decades, I offer my deepest condolences to his daughter Börte and his son Matthias.
We pine and thirst for revelation; Klaus is no longer with us yet the ocean of his knowledge will continue to be a source of insight and inspiration for generations of scholars to come.
Oliver Corff
Secretary General
December 15, 2025
Sources:
Bawden, C. R.: [Review of the “Weiße Geschichte”]. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1978, Vol. 41, No. 2 (1978), pp. 400–401.
Grupper, Samuel C.: [Review of the “Weiße Geschichte”]. Mongolian Studies, 1981-2, Vol. 7 (1981-2), pp. 127-133.
Kollmar-Paulenz, Karénina: Klaus Sagaster. Curriculum vitae. In: Kollmar-Paulenz, Karénina (ed.): Tractata Tibetica et Mongolica: Festschrift für Klaus Sagaster zum 65. Geburtstag. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002, pp. XV—XVIII.
Sagaster, Klaus (Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert): Subud Erike. Ein Rosenkranz aus Perlen. Die Biographie des 1. Pekinger lČaṅ skya Khutukhtu Ṅag dbaṅ blo bzaṅ č’os ldan, verfasst von Ṅag dbaṅ č’os ldan alias Šes rab dar rgyas. (= Asiatische Forschungen, Band 20) Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1967.
Sagaster, Klaus (Herausgegeben, übersetzt und kommentiert): Die weisse Geschichte: Eine mongolische Quelle zur Lehre von den beiden Ordnungen Religion und Staat in Tibet und der Mongolei = (Čayan teu͏̈ke). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1976.
Sagaster, Ursula: Die Baltis : ein Bergvolk im Norden Pakistans. Frankfurt a. M.: Museum für Völkerkunde, 1989.
Sehnalova, Anna: An interview with Klaus Sagaster. Oral History of Tibetan Studies, November 23, 2018. https://oralhistory.iats.info/interviews/klaus-sagaster/ (last visited December 11, 2025).
Sinor, Denis: [Review of the “Subud erike”]. Journal of Asian History, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1971), pp. 159–160.
Stolpe, Ines: Wir trauern um Professor Dr. Klaus Sagaster (1933–2025) https://www.ioa.uni-bonn.de/mongtib/de/colloquien/bilder-und-pdfs/wir-trauern-um-prof-dr-klaus-sagaster.pdf (last accessed December 11, 2025).