The literature on Prajnaparamita, vast, deep and vital to an understanding of the Mahayana, has so far been somewhat neglected by European scholars. With the aim of facilitating its study, I have in this book set out a certain amount of information about it. This is a handbook which records for the use of scholars the very limited knowledge we have acquired during the last century. I am well aware that a compilation of this kind lends itself to innumerable sins of commission and omission. The critical reader will discover many of them, and I must console myself with having given him something to build on. After completing my typescript, which has slowly matured over twenty years, I find that the gaps in my treatment stand out more clearly than its contours. The Bibliography; though comprehensive, is by no means complete. I have not listed all the translations, articles and books which have appeared in Japanese, nor the numerous Chinese commentaries which are not included in the Taisho Issaikyo. As for the Mongol, I have ignored the Tanjur, which seems to exist only in Ulan Bator. The Manchu translations of the Kanjur, which were done between 1730 and 1790, are likewise inaccessible in Europe. Modern translations into Dutch, Italian, etc., are noted only sporadically. The treatment of the commentatorial literature is quite unsatisfactory, and generally confined to listing the bare bibliographical data. The material is so vast that no one person can be expected to do everything. Others will, I hope, take up the thread where I have left it.