Two questions - Taranatha and Robert Gussner

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

1. What is the period in which Taranatha wrote his account of the
history of Buddhism in India? Is the original in Tibetan or in Sanskrit?
There are remarkable mirror stories about Dharmakirti and Kumarila, if
one compares Taranatha's account with the Sankaravijaya texts. Also,
Taranatha's description of the initial conversation between Aryadeva and
mAt.rceta is almost identical to the traditional description of the
Sankara-maNDana miSra dialogue, beginning with "whence the shaven head?"
"from the neck up ..." and both stories include a theme where the
eventual loser in debate was performing an annual sacrifice for his
ancestors.

2. Is anyone on this list aware of a publication by Robert Gussner (PhD,
1974, Harvard) about a stylometric study of the Dakshinamurti stotra
attributed to Sankaracharya? A 1976 paper by Gussner analyzes a number
of other stotras, and ends with a brief statement that the Dakshinamurti
hymn was probably written by Sankara, and a tantalizing promise that the
more detailed discussion will be provided in a subsequent paper.
However, I've been unable to track down the second paper, and have seen
only the first one quoted.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, although I can't promise instant
moksha ...

Vidyasankar

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