Rolf Stein (1911–1999)

Rolf Alfred Stein was a German-born French sinologist and Tibetologist whose work joined Chinese and Tibetan textual traditions. He taught at the École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France, and became especially known for research on the Gesar epic, Tibetan civilization and the historical geography of the Sino-Tibetan frontier.

Stein’s method relied on reading Tibetan evidence together with Chinese sources, archaeology, religious history and place-name traditions. His identification of Tibetan Minyag with the Tangut state of Western Xia exemplifies the cross-linguistic historical method that made his scholarship particularly valuable for the study of Tibet and its neighbouring peoples.