Buddhist Wisdom The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra

A landmark publication from its first appearance more than forty years ago, Buddhist Wisdom offers Western readers a unique combination of what Buddhists worldwide consider the holiest of holy texts -- The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, or scriptures, ascribed to the early centuries of the first millennium.The Diamond Sutra, or the "Perfection of Wisdom which cuts like a thunderbolt", is one of the cornerstone texts of Mahayana Buddhism and provides a summary of the core concepts of the Buddha. The Heart Sutra, perhaps the most important of all Buddhist texts, sets out to formulate the very "heart" or essence of perfect wisdom and is studied with special reverence in Zen monasteries and the Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries.

Edward Conze (1904-1970) was born in England but was educated in Germany through postdoctoral studies in Bonn and Hamburg. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Conze returned to England and taught for the better part of three decades, until 1960, at Oxford and London Universities. His subjects included psychology, comparative religion, and philosophy. A lifelong commitment to the translation, explication, and propagation of the classic scriptural texts of Buddhism was the hallmark of his achievement.