The Perfection of Wisdom

Edward Conze is one of the towering collosusses of Western Mahayana Buddhist scholarship, a name sccarcely surpassed in services to Buddhism since it first seeped into the Western consciousness. In this stupendous little book, Conze has translated and compiled an almost complete selection of the shorter Prajnaparamita texts, including the ubiquitous Vajra-Cutter (Diamond) and Hrdaya (Heart) Sutras but more notably several vastly less known sutras from the Sanskrit. He has included sections of sutric and tantric Prajnaparamita scriptures, making this a potent compendium of knowledge of little known Mahayana tantra. This absolutely stunning volume is essential for all libraries of Mahayana Buddhism.

Dr. Conze has collected a large number of short versions of the Prajnaparamita texts. They are informative and valuable especially regarding what Buddhists refer to as Emptiness. Indeed, the Tibetan Buddhists in addition to various Vajrayana texts, often cite and recommend the Prajnaparamita literature which is vast. This literature includes the famous Heart Sutra (which is actually about one page long!). I gave this particular book 4 stars because I've also read the intermediate length version (8000 lines) which is far better. I own (but haven't read yet) the large version (I think its 25,000 lines). There are even larger ones that Dr. Conze hasn't done too. Nevertheless, it might be best to read the short ones first to get a taste for the literature and then move on to the 8000 lines version (probably the one most referenced other than, perhaps, the Heart Sutra itself). Good reading!