13 AUGUST 1954, Page 29

Tuts volume of translations of Buddhist texts is intended as

a companion to Edward Conze's Buddhism and contains a width of illustrative material designed to interest both the student and the general reader. The names of the editors arc a sufficient guarantee of the excellence of the translation. The first part of the book contains a selection of texts from the Hinayana tradition, the second deals with the Mahayana, the th.rd with th3 Tantras and the fourth (edited by Arthur Walcy) gives some Buddhist texts from Ch:na and Japan. As there is no anthology of translations from the Tantras or from Chinese and Japanese sources in any other European language, these last two sections are of special interest to the scholar. How- ever, the whole collection, if read together with Dr. Conze's account of Buddhism, will give anyone interested in the history of religion and culture an insight into remote worlds of thought and feeling which he could not have obtained before its publica- tion.

Compitrat've rt ligion is a fasc:nat'rg sub- ject, and those who have succumbed to its charms owe a debt to the editors of th s volume.

A. H.