Edward Conze

Edward Conze ( born March 18, 1904 in Forest Hill, London Borough of Lewisham; † September 24, 1979 in Yeovil, Somerset ) was a philologist and Buddhism watchers and one of the first Western scholars who have dealt extensively with the Mahayana Buddhism.

Life

Conze was born in London as a child of German diplomats, which he also received British citizenship.

Conze studied in Germany at the universities of Tübingen, Heidelberg, Kiel, Cologne and Hamburg, philosophy, psychology and Indology. In 1928 he received his doctorate under Max Scheler ( title of the thesis: The notion of metaphysics at St. Francis Suarez, SJ). During his time in Heidelberg Conze was a Marxist for the first time at Max Walleser (1874-1954) with Buddhism in touch.

1933 emigrated Conze due to his British citizenship to England, where he Dayal and the writings of DT Suzuki came through his acquaintance with Har again with Buddhism in contact. Conze 1946 began with the translation of the Heart Sutra his years of translation activity in the Prajnaparamita literature field. Up to Conze, very few parts of it were ( inter alia by IJ Schmidt and Eugène Burnouf ) translated into Western languages.

Edward Conze felt himself as a Buddhist, but he refused to visit the Buddhist cultures in Asia and was limited to the exploration of classical texts. Volker Zotz presented for testing: "He was aware that his ideals withstood hardly the reality of the countries in which we officially committed to them. "

Works (selection)

• German: Buddhist thinking. Three phases of Buddhist philosophy in India. 2nd Edition Suhrkamp (st 1772), Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-518-38272-1, ( Conze's main plant in the postwar period )

Swell

• J. W. De Jong: Edward Conze 1904-1979. In: Indo -Iranian Journal Vol 22, No. 2, April 1980, pp. 143-146.
• R. J. Z. Werblowsky: Edward Conze ( 1904-1979 ). In: Numen Vol 27, Fasc. 1, June 1980, p 189