20th century “Buddhism” was largely based on Theosophy—a 19th century European pop-spiritual movement.
A major muddler was Edward Conze, whose history @Jayarava reveals here. Important for anyone who thinks they understand Prajñaparamita—or should.
http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2018/09/edward-conze-study-in-contradiction.html …
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I read Conze’s Sanskrit “translations” as a teenager. They were exciting because they made so much sense. Which—of course they did! They expounded familiar Western ideas in Buddhist drag. Only much later, reading Tibetan commentaries, did I understand Conze’s fabrications.
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Tibetan understandings of Prajñaparamita draw on late Indian commentaries; there’s a dozen strata of accumulated reinterpretations. None is any more “authentic” than any other; Conze is no worse than (say) Tsongkhapa. But you can’t understand the texts without the history.
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IMO, if we could recover the original meaning of Prajñaparamita, it would have no special status. Humans with limited understanding composed the texts, not supernatural Buddhas, as myth has it. Personally I find late tantric reinterpretations more valuable than earlier versions.
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Replying to @Meaningness
interesting stuff, David. Slight tangent: you refer to 'late tantric reinterpretations', do you have a specific commentator/s in mind, or more a general style of interpretation from a period of time?
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My personal preference is for the Dzogchen reworking.
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