Take Two... as follow-up to the previous post, in my second message to the same friend on the same topic:

Indian historians are indebted to Xuang Zang and, before him, Fa Xian (法显). Apparently, the record of Indian history would have been more fragmented without those two.

My study was also motivated by curiosity. I noticed certain phenomena that I wanted to make sense of. So many sects of Buddhism speak of scriptures, mantras, icons, other "realities", to which so many believers are attached. This seems to me contradictory to the fundamental tenets of Buddhist philosophy, although the argument is that you are first attached to something good, or more desirable, or less injurious, before becoming detached, because this something has some built-in mechanism of paradox, whereby you will be detached of it when you are attached to it. I have found that it's only partly true and very much depends on the aptitude of the student. So, inevitably, those without such aptitude who continue to hold on to it for dear life till the end of their lives are comforted with the theory that they are bound for heaven nevertheless because of their faith. And, inevitably, the issue of "Ultimate Reality" and substantiality comes up and indeed, all leading religions in the world are agreed on this principle - the ultimate reality of god, allah, some powerful buddha or bodhisattva who IS, or is in tune with, the ultimate reality and therefore has infinite power to save the worthy ones, and the worthy ones only.

Hence my decision to get to the bottom of it. I have been told that this "bottom" doesn't exist. But I want to find out for myself.