Edward Conze, born Eberhard Julius Dietrich Conze (1904–1979), was an eminent scholar of Marxism and Buddhism, known primarily for his commentaries and translations of the Prajñāpāramitā literature.

In his essay Great Buddhists of the Twentieth Century (Windhorse Publications: 1996), British writer and teacher of Buddhism, and personal friend of Conze's, Sangharakshita writes that "Dr. Conze was a complex figure, and it is not easy to assess his overall significance.... He was a self-confessed élitist, which is usually something people are ashamed of nowadays, but he wasn’t ashamed of it at all.... Nor did he approve of either democracy or feminism, which makes him a veritable ogre of ‘political incorrectness’." 

Nevertheless, Sangharakshita summarizes Conze's legacy as a scholar of Buddhism as follows:

"Dr Conze was one of the great Buddhist translators, comparable with the indefatigable Chinese translators Kumarajiva and Hsuan-tsang of the fifth and seventh centuries respectively. It is especially significant, I think, that as a scholar of Buddhism he also tried to practise it, especially meditation. This was very unusual at the time he started his work, and he was regarded then – in the forties and fifties – as being something of an eccentric. Scholars were not supposed to have any personal involvement in their subject. They were supposed to be ‘objective’. So he was a forerunner of a whole new breed of Western scholars in Buddhism who are actually practising Buddhists.^[12]" 

Ji Yun, Professor of the Buddhist College of Singapore, describes Conze's legacy as follows:

Even to this day, Edward Conze (1904-1979) the German British scholar has to be regarded, not as one of many, but as the most important researcher on Prajñāpāramitā literature. This genius of Buddhist linguist [sic.] and philologist devoted his whole life to the collation, translation and research of Prajñāpāramitā literature in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese – a language relatively neglected by European scholars before him. Although the research of this prolific writer covers well beyond the Prajñāpāramitā category, his works dedicated solely to this, according to an incomplete count by the Japanese scholar Yuyama Akira 汤山明, include 16 books and 46 articles.... In the history of Prajñāpāramitā research Conze can be regarded as a formidable scholar with no comparison, suprpassing [sic.] all past and perhaps even future researchers in his achievement.<sup>[13]

(Huệ Hương ST)</sup>