The International Association of Tibetan Studies has posted a moving farewell to respected Buddhist scholar Helmut Krasser, who passed away over the weekend at age 57.
IATS says that Krassner most recently served as director of the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna) since 2007, during which time he “had been increasingly involved in…groundbreaking cooperation with the China Tibetology Research Center (Beijing), a cooperation that resulted in the sensational publication of numerous works of which the Sanskrit originals had been hitherto considered lost.”
Of Krassner’s personal qualities, IATS observed that “all those who had the privilege to meet [him] were instantly charmed by his wit, the warm and vibrant expression of his eyes, his exceptional understanding of things human and social, and the unique manner in which he managed not to take himself or his research (too) seriously.” During his two years of terminal illness, they said, Krassner “exemplarily never gave up hope and never abandoned his optimism or his good mood.”
