Thanks once more for all the helpful feedback and support. I have included almost all these suggestions.
There is a lot of this to come in the following essays!
I read Sanskrit passably. For the Chinese, sometimes I can make things out with the aid of the awesome Chinese lookup tool on SC; other times I rely on essays or translations; and other times, I ask the good folks on this forum for help.
I probably should include references, but I made the decision at the start of these essays to just write them. Honestly, I have put these together in bits and pieces in between my other SC duties, and I simply can’t envisage having the time to chase down all the references. Also, mostly I live in between one room and the next, with no books and random internet. So I decided to forgo the ideal of being academically respectable, and focus on writing things in a readable way. But that’s not really a good excuse!
Yes, I would like to consider other publishing options. I am not sure what kind of title you’d suggest?
Meanwhile, the second essay is up!