Zorin A.V. [Review:] Schneider J. Eine buddhistische Kritik der indischen Gotter. Śaṅkarasvāmins Devātiśayastotra mit Prajnāvarmans Kommentar. Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, 2014. (Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde) // Written Monuments of the Orient. 2(2), 2015. P. 111—113.
Dr. Johannes Schneider is well known for his works on the Indo-Tibelan poetry contained in the Tibetan Buddhist Canon. His special academic interest lies in the reflection of Indian literary and religious heritage in Buddhist poetic texts. His new monograph concludes a series of his works on three famous Buddhist apologetic
hymns composed by the brothers Udbhaṭasiddhasvāmin (the author of two of them) and Śaṃkarasvāmin. These hymns, along with two commentaries by Prajnavarman on the longest of them, open the one-volume section Collected Hymns of the Tengyur and are supposed to be the earliest Buddhist hymns written in Sanskrit. However,both of Udbhaṭasiddhasvāmin’s texts are only known in Tibetan translation, while a rather late Sanskrit manuscript copy of Śaṃkarasvāmin’s hymn was found not long ago and edited by Losang Norbu Shastri (1990) and M. Hahn (2000)...