INDEX

Abdullah (Muhammad's father), 201 absolute(s), the: community as a source of, 28on36; conundrum of, 13-15; embracing, reasons for and implications of, 8; fearful hotness encouraged by, 251; frustrations with, 6-7; ideas of nature, religion and community without, possibility of, 275; moral entrepreneurs leveraging, 250-55; nature and divine guidance as, 6; non­absoluteness of, 15; one-sided truth yielded by, 263-64; politics and, 14-15 (see also nonpolitical politics); respite resulting from, sense of, 3; social uses and abuses of, 257-58; as urban, bourgeois idea, 9 Abu Bakr, 207-8 agnosticism, 243-44 agrarian cities, 119-20

Agricol d’Avignon, Saint (bishop of Avi­gnon), 229-31

agriculture and rural life: bourgeois concep­tion of the divine and, 111-13; electrum saints, appeal to, 231; harvest festivals/ holidays (see harvest festivals/holidays); Islam and, 214-15; Jesus and, 113-15; mono­theism and, 101; the Old Testament and, 84-87, 102; organic/sustainable, 110-11; pagan/rural orientation to nature and, 44-45; religiosity of American farmers, 111-13; Saint Agricol and, 229-31; sexual disruption in, 130; Thompson farm, transformation of, 110-12; ways of life, urban versus rural, 269

Ahmose I (pharaoh of Egypt), 95

Ahura Mazda, 164, 169

Aisha, 206-7, 211-12

Akhenaten (pharaoh of Egypt), 95

Alcibiades, 59

Al-Dawoody, Ahmed, 309n47

Alexander the Great (king of Macedon), 98, 161-62, 165, 299n35

Ali, Muhammad (not the boxer), 173

Ali Ibn Abi Talib, 207-8, 211

Allah, 200-201 alphabetic writing, 118, 294n24 amaQwathi, the, 27-28, 35, 282n24 amaXhosa, the, 27-31, 282n24, 282n31 Ambrose, Saint (bishop of Mediolanum),

3-5

Amenhotep IV (pharaoh of Egypt), 95 Amesha Spenta, 164-65

anatman, 157, 240

ancestor veneration/worship, 28-31, 43 ancient triangle of beliefs: electrum elements

of, replacing lead of absolutes with, 275­77; forming to split apart, 142; nature, faith, and community forming, 7-8, 248; the Old Testament and, 92, 102; origin and divisions of, explanation for the, 8-10; urban origin of, 9, 92, 275; use to maintain social splits, 225, 234

Anderson, Benedict, 41

Angkor Wat, 303n42 animal sacrifice, 194, 215

Antietam, Battle of, 1

Antipater, 115-16, 293n21

Anu (Sumerian god), 33-36, 42-44 apartheid, 220-25

Aper-el, 95

Arabian Empire, 207, 304^7

Arabian Peninsula: conflict and rising in­equality in, 197; Muhammad's authority established throughout, 206; pre-Islamic religion in, 199-201.

Arianism, 175

Aristocles.

Aristophanes, 51-61, 137, 169, 285^4, 286n29

Arius, 175

Armstrong, Karen: Axial Age, timing of, 280n30; Axial religious sensibilities as re­solving modernist troubles, 280^2; central­ity of war in early city-states, 284^5; dis­agreements with, 310n27; parallels across traditions, reflections on, 241; political/ geographic expansion and rise of univer- salistic divine goodness, association of, 11; religion as a discipline, hopeful view of, 310n26; religious origins of frustrations over absolutes, work on, 7; violence, early religions and, 283n52

Aryans, the, 183 asabiya, 208-9, 213

Ashoka (emperor of the Mauryan Empire), 158, 160-61, 185, 299n23

Ashwood, Loka, 265

Aslan, Reza, 7, 125, 295^7, 295^8, 296n46 Assyrians, the, 97

Athanasius (archbishop of Alexandria), 174-75

atheism, 243-45

Athens: democracy and wealth inequality in, 60-61; economic growth and inequal­ity in, 59; inequality in, 57-59; life in 388 BCE: the drama competition in honor of Dionysus, 50-57; Long Walls of, 285n13; metics (free men born of non-Athenian citizens) in, 58-59; patriarchy in, 59-60; the Second Athenian League, 169; slavery in, 57-59; warfare involving, 285n12

Athronges, 295n38

Augustine of Hippo, Saint: the absolute, appeal to, 6-7, 273-74; conversion of, 3-6; divine natural other felt by, 74; “Heavenly City” of, 214; “lust for dom­ination” and the problem of desire, con­cern about, 126, 214

Avignon, 109, 121, 145-47, 229-30 awesome coolness: fearful hotness, replaced by, 251; openness to further experience as, 258; openness to the unknown as, 258, 277; of truth as ever-changing, 267; of the universe, 245-47. See also perennial philosophy

Axial Age, 10, 280n30 Axial theory, 10-12, 245 al-Azwar, Khawlah bint, 212

Babylonians, the, 97-98

Baha’i, 158

Bajrangi Bhaijaana, 196 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 15 Bar Kokhba, Simon, 98 Bar Kokhba Revolt, 172 Becker, Howard S., 250, 308n32 Berger, Peter, 31on28 Bessemer, Henry, 2 Bhagavad Gita, 188-91, 287n48 Bible, the: as bedtime reading, 77-80, 104, 268; frequency of Americans reading, 80; moral entrepreneurs and passages from, 251-54; New Testament (see New Testament); Old Testament (see Old Testament or Hebrew Bible); political history of, points of consensus and con­tention on, 92-96; the Popol Vuh and, 23; the Qur’an and, 202; sexist passages in, 210-11; violence in, 254-55

Bland, Bill, 265

Boccaccini, Gabriele, 3oon49 Book of Idols, The (Al-Kalbi), 199-200 Borza, Eugene N., 299n27 bourgeois/bourgeois life: air travel as, 195;

cities becoming, 121 (see also urban­ism/urbanization); conundrum of the absolute and, 13-14; the desire not to desire and, 150; double conflict of (see double conflict); electrum faiths as balance of pagan and, 182; focus of Christianity, Judaism, and Buddhism on, 182, 184; in Glanum (Roman Empire), 122; Hinduism, surprises in, 192; Iron Age foundations of the inequality of, 117-21; meaning of the term, 12, 61-62; natural conscience on the Thompson farm and, 111-13; owning a summer home as, 75; pagan and, conflict of, 269-70; the Qur’an and, themes of, 202-4; receding of after the collapse of the Roman Em­pire, 230-31; the Renaissance period, bourgeois echo in, 232-33; Revelation and, 254; sex, 130-31; vision of in Bhaga­vad Gita, 190-92 bourgeois environmentalism, 272-73 bourgeoisie, 61 bourgeois monotheism, 142-45 bourgeois polytheism, 178 bourgeois sex, 130-31, 153, 269 bourgeois surprises, 192-93, 208 brahman, 190-93, 240-41, 300n451 Bronze Age collapse, 93-94 Broshi, Megan, 290^4 Buddha, the: animal sacrifice, banning

of, 194; bourgeois life, insights into the issues of, 184; caste and the teachings of, 184-85; death of, 298n1; desire, material and sexual, concern about, 149, 151, 153­56, 184; Jesus and, parallels between, 158­59; life and Great Departure of, 150-51, 153-57; Manichaeism and, 3; sexist say­ings, overlooking of, 210; statue of laugh­ing, 149; Vardhamana and, comparisons between, 166-67

Buddhism: Ashoka and the spread of, 158, 160-61, 185; bourgeois concerns, focus on, 182, 184; Christianity and, 158, 162; core principles articulated in “Sermon at Benares,” 155-57; dualism of, 300n44; eightfold path, 156-57; empire and, 207; four noble truths, 155-56; Hinduism and, comparison of, 191-92, 195; historical con­text and message of the Buddha, 150-53; Jainism and, 168; jewel net of Indra image, 265; Nirvana (see Nirvana); pagan tra­ditions and, 182, 301n7; place, encounter­ing the divine in, 213; popularity in the United States, 158; popularity of/number of adherents to, 157-58; Zoroastrianism and, 164-66

Buddhist modernism, 182 Burton, Sir Richard, 211, 305n98

Cabecar, the, 24-27 Calverley, C.

Chandragupta Maurya (emperor of the Mauryan Empire), 158

China: ancient agrarian cities in, 120; Li Ehr and the Way (Dao), 68-72; Lingyin Temple, release from desire at, 148-50 Christianity: bourgeois concerns, focus

on, 182; Buddhism and, 158, 162; empire and, 207; greening of, reforging electrum connection to the pagan and, 271-72; Is­lam and, 204, 208; Judaism and, 173, 295n43; morality of wealth and inequal­ity as theme of, 126; Nazism and, 234-35; openness to debate and deliberation, 266; pagan traditions and, 180-82; place, encountering the divine in, 213; Plato's ideas and, 170; popularity of, 157-58; the Protestant Reformation, 231-33; quasi­kinship of faith and, 131-32, 145; the Roman Empire as context of, 115-17; va­rieties of, 173 (see also Gnosticism); Zo­roastrianism and, 164-66. See also Bible, the; Jesus; Jesus movement circumcision, 28, 282n31, 293n21 city/cities: absence of the notion in ancient civilizations, 120; bourgeois life and inequality emerging in, 121; sin and cor­ruption, as the alleged principal site of, 130. See also urbanism/urbanization

City of God, The (Augustine), 6 civilizationist bias, 11 class: disruptive power of sex and, 129-31;

Indian castes and, 152; kinship/family ties disrupted by, 128-29; the Protestant Reformation and, 232-33; social rise of, in the Iron Age, 119; social relations of, 61 (see also bourgeois). See also inequality Cleisthenes, 60 Clement V, 146 Clement VII, 147 Climate and Civilization (Huntington), 256 Cline, Eric, 94 Coe, Michael, 23, 281n9, 294n24 coins, minted, 117-18, 153, 187, 212, 294n23 collective conscience, 72-73 community/communities: absolutes and,

7-8, 14, 233-34, 250, 275-76, 280n36; ama- Qwathi and, 27-28, 31; ancient triangle of beliefs, as one side of, 7-8; of believers (ummah) for Muslims, 204-6; boundaries and, 7, 14, 134, 250, 293n21; of the Buddhist good, 157; directional social change, evo­lutionary bias toward seeing, 11-12; ideas, trust, and, 8, 14, 233, 248; the ignorable as constitutive of, 250; interests and, 263; knowledge cultivation and, 249; moral en­trepreneurs and, 250-55; movement from rural to urban in organization of, 11-12; with nature, 13; of place, 41; rural and, 12, 28, 31, 44, 130; sacrifices holding together a, 31; sexy community, 296n63.

natural conscience)

Constantine (emperor of the Roman Em­pire), 4, 145 context(s): changing in Gilgamesh, 45-46; different concerns raised by different, 12; evolutionary bias, social change and, 11-12; of Hinduism, 183-85; of ideas, social relations as, 247-48; Islam, of the emergence of, 197-201; Jesus, for the life of, 115-17; knowledge grounded in, 265; pagan of nature before nature, 43-45; political for Jesus, 123-25; of Revelation, 253; syncretism and, 170 contextual parallels, 163, 170. See also syncretism

Coomaraswamy, Ananda Kentish, 241 copper, exploring for, 24-26 Costa Rica, 24-27

Council of Nicaea, 145, 174-75 Cronus (ruler of the gods), 20-21 Crossan, John Dominic, 295^7, 297n86 crucifixion, 125

cultivation of knowledge, 249, 257, 263 cultivation of the ignorable, 249-50, 263 cultural memory, 291n79

Cyrus the Great (emperor of Persia), 98

dao, 68-71, 74, 184, 240-41, 260-61 Dao De Jing (Li Ehr), 69-71 Daoism/Daoist, 68-72, 75, 240, 286n38 Darius I (emperor of Persia), 165 Darwin, Charles, 2, 267 Davies, Philip R., 291n79 Dawkins, Richard, 7, 243-45 Dawood, N. J., 304n65 Dead Sea Scroll (4)QDeut, 288n24 de Landa, Diego (bishop of Yucatan), 22, 281n8

Demetrius of Phalerum, 285n18 democracy: in Athens, 60-61; rights and, 175 Demosthenes, 59

Dennett, Daniel, 308n14 desire: as basic evil that gains prominence in the New Testament, 126-28, 131; Bud­dhism and, 151, 153-56; dangers of ex­plained in Bhagavad Gita, 190; electrum versus absolutism in addressing, 273;

Islamic approach to the problem of, 208-10; Jainism and, 167-68; as moral priority for Jesus, 126-28; not to desire, bourgeois life and, 12, 150; Old Testa­ment and, 90-91; for a pearl in China, 148-50; the Qur’an’s warnings against, 202-3; in the Rig Veda, 184; for sex (see sex); urban concern about, 8-9, 12; as vertical evil, 126; for wealth (see wealth) Dever, William G., 290^4, 291n77 devil, the, 141-42 dharma, 157, 160, 167, 190-92 Diamond, Jared, 7 Dikteon Cave, 281n6 dipper, wooden, 178-79 Directa Decretal, 5 disloyalty: as basic evil emphasized in the

Old Testament, 89-91; as horizontal evil, 126; Jesus and, 126-28, 131; pagan concern about, 12; political unity and theological concern with, 99-102; struggle over in the Old Testament, 102-3

dithyramb, 50

divine, the: Axial Age, as universal and tran­scendent in, 10-11; bourgeois, Christian formulation of, 142-45; deity, derivation of the term, 20; in Hinduism, 186-87, 192-94; immanence of (see immanence); interaction with humans, 186-87; the Islamic, 212-13; Leibnitz versus Spinoza on, 241-42; names for, 81, 100-102, 131, 291-92n93; nature and, separation of, 9-10; in nature before nature traditions, charac­teristics of, 35-36; poly-divinity of nature before nature traditions, 36; pronunciation of names for, 288n26; scientists’ beliefs about, 242-45; unity of across diverse tra­ditions, 240-41.

divine guidance, 6

double conflict: contextual parallels and, 163; defined, 62; human striving and, 276; racial oppression and, 270; urban power and, 269 duotheism, 104 Durkheim, Emile, 11-12, 72-73, 297nio3,

3O5n89

Dworkin, Ronald, 245 Dyeus (chief god of the Proto-Indo-

Europeans), 19-20, 131

Eckel, Malcolm David, 157 “ecological dialogue,” 28on28 ecology: civilizationist bias of Axial theo­

rists and, 11; Hindu divinities and, 194; in Islam, 215; neglect of, urbanization and, 9; pagan/rural orientation to nature and, 44-45, 272; in the Popol Vuh, 24; Thomp­son farm and, transformation of, 110. See also environment, the; environmentalism Edict of Thessalonica, 5, 145-46, 3oon58 “Edicts of Ashoka,” 160 Edmonds, J. M., 65, 286n35 Egypt, Semites in, 94-95 Ehrman, Bart, 292n4 Einstein, Albert, 242-44, 267 electrum faiths: as balance of bourgeois and pagan, 182 (see also Hinduism; Islam); en­vironmentalism based on, 272-73; green­ing of religion through, 270-72; trans­immanence and, 275 electrum saints, 231 empire: Alexander the Great and, 98,

161-62, 165; Arabian, 206-8, 212, 304n87; Byzantine, 197; Islam and, 206-8; par­allels between European and Indian, 163; Persian, 98, 161, 165, 197; Roman, 3-5, 43, 59, 66, 115, 123, 126, 130-31, 143, 145, 230­32, 253, 300n58; Sasanian, 197, 207; spread­ing of religion through, 146, 160-61, 207. See also state, the

Enkidu (Gilgamesh's companion in Epic of Gilgamesh), 33-40, 42, 46

Enlil (Sumerian god), 33-35, 37, 42 “entangled”/ “entanglement” as metaphor, use of, 280n27

entangled visions of nature before nature: agricultural imagery of, 44-45; ancestor entangled visions of nature before nature (continued)

veneration/worship in South Africa's Eastern Cape, 28-31, 43; beginning of changes in, 45-46; of the Cabecar in Costa Rica, 26-27; common features of, 35-40; in Epic of Gilgamesh, 32-35; family life in, 42-43; in the Ideon Cave, 19-21; in the Mahabharata, 186-87; pagan context of, 43-45; politics in, 41-42; the Popol Vuh, 22-24; realism in, 40-43 environment, the: Buddhism as basis for environmental ethics, 156-57; greening of religion, tapping pagan-bourgeois syn­ergies for, 270-72; Horace’s concern with, 67; human domination of, 2-3; shmita as rest for the land and economic/ecologic justice, 85; water pollution in Rome and London, 67.

environmental apartheid, 282n26 environmentalism: as electrum, not bour­geois or pagan, 272-73; as nonpolitical politics, 226-28

Epic of Gilgamesh, 32-40, 42-46, 66, 88, 93,

252

Esposito, John L., 3O3n44, 3O3n48 Essenes, the, 171 evil, explaining the presence of, 176 evolutionary psychology, 308n30 Exodus story, 78-80, 93-96

faith: ancient triangle of beliefs, as one side of, 7-8; traditions (see religion(s)) family: class, disrupted by, 128-29; Great

Departure of Siddartha Gautama from, 153; in nature before nature traditions, 42-43; quasi-kinship as destructive of, 132-33

fearful hotness, 251, 254 feminine divine, 38-39, 292n102 Finger (Lakota shaman), 238-40, 244 Finkelstein, Israel, 290n68, 291n77 Finley, Moses I., 285n16, 285^7 first nature (as a material firstness), 49, 65, 287n45

Fonda, Jane, 301n62 Forman, Robert, 241 forms, the (Platonic), 169-70, 240 Foucault, Michel, 247-48

Francis, 270

Frederico (of the Cabecar), 26-27, 41 Fritz, Volkmar, 119

Fung You-Lan, 69

Ganesha (Hindu divinity), 192-94

Gates, William, 281n8

Gatling, Henry, 2 gender: in ancient Greece, 52; in Arabian culture and Islam, 210-12; of divinities, 38-39, 203, 292n102-3; empire, faith, and, 212; in Gnosticism, 177; in Hinduism, 192; in Islam, 203, 210-12; the Old Testa­ment god and, 104; patriarchy in ancient Greece, 59-60; in Platonism, 169; in Zoroastrianism, 164 generalized other, 73

George, Andrew, 283n47

Germany, nonpolitical politics in Nazi, 233-36

Gilgamesh (king of Uruk in Epic of Gilga­mesh), 32-39, 42-46, 83, 93, 252

Glanum, 121-22

Gnosticism: additional Gospels included in, 266; as a bourgeois polytheism, 177-78; central ideas of, 175-77; discov­ery of divine texts of, 173-74; hiding divine texts of, 174-75; state and empire, beginning as reaction to, 207; usage of the term, 301n61 gods/the divine: humor associated with in nature before nature, 40-41; immanent conception of Islamic, 212-13; imper­fection of in nature before nature, 40; nonpolitical, unitary god as, 135-36; the Old Testament god (see Old Testament); polytheism in the Bible, 80-82; of pre- Islamic Arabia, 200-201; presence of God in the Tabernacle, 83; in the Qur’an, 204; tawhid and the Christian trinity, distinc­tion between, 203. See also divine, the golden rule: the Buddha's version of, 157;

Jesus’s version of, 127; parallels between the Buddha’s and Jesus’s, 159

gold mining, 219-25

good, the: as an absolute (see absolute(s), the); ancient triangle and, 12; Ashoka and, 178; the bourgeois and, 12-13, 167, 190, 233; Buddhism and, 154-55; con­structing the bad as, 224; disagreement about, 7-8; the divine as a universal unity of in the Axial Age, 11; Gnosticism and, 176; Hinduism and, 192, 194; Islam and, 204, 206; Jainism and, 167; Jesus and, 111, 137-38; Judaism and, 172; nature and, 3, 6, 8-9, 12, 48-50, 65-76; nature before nature and, 21, 27, 35, 40-43; nature of discussed in Bhagavad Gita, 190-91; as non-human, 7; Old Testament and, 80, 83, 102, 176; Plato on, 169-70; as political absolute (see nonpolitical politics); social change from rural to urban and, 11-12; Zoroastrianism and, 163-64

Gore, Al, 7

Grabbe, Lester, 300n49

Gratian (emperor of Roman Empire), 145 Greeks, ancient: Athens (see Athens); life in

388 BCE: the drama competition in honor of Dionysus, 50-57; physis, etymological origins of, 48-50; “polis religion” of, 286n30; Theocritus and the bucolic writ­ers, 62-66; Wealth by Aristophanes, 53-59 Green, Peter, 299n27 greening religion, 7, 270-73, 279n24 grounded knowledge. See truth Gupta Empire, 304n86

hadith: on bodily excretions, 211; collected in the Sunnah, 201-2; on menstruation, 211, 305n103; on sexual practices of Mu­hammad, 210

Haleem, M. A. S. Abdel, 303n46, 304n65

Harden, Noelle, 265

Harris, Sam, 3o8ni4 harvest festivals/holidays: greening of religion and, 270-72; Halloween and the Day of the Dead, 180-81; of the Old Tes­tament, 86, 102, 117; taxation associated with, 117

Harvey, Peter, 195, 3O3n41

Herod (king of Judea), 116-17, 171, 293n22, 295n37

Herodotus, 166

Hesiod, 281n3

Hijrah (Muhammad's migration to Me­dina), 205

Hinduism: animal sacrifice in, 194; Bhagavad Gita, 188-91; Buddhism and, comparison of, 191-92, 195; as electrum faith, 182, 195, 197; empire and, 207; gods in, 192-94; the Mahabharata, reframing Vedic ideas in, 185-91; popularity of, 157; social and historical context of, the caste system and, 183-85, 190-91; in South Asia countries, 196; as unified identity across many manners of living, 194-95 Hitchens, Christopher, 308n14 Hitler, Adolf, 233-34

Homer, 49

Horace, 66-68, 71-74, 119 Horus (Egyptian god), 299^5 Hubal (pre-Islamic Arabic god), 200-201, 303n49, 303n52

humans: entangled with nature and super­nature, 21 (see also entangled visions of nature before nature); interaction with the divine in Hindu traditions, 186-87; in nature before nature traditions, 36-38, 41 Huntington, Ellsworth, 255-57 Huxley, Aldous, 241

Hyrcanus II (king ofJudea), 115-16 ideas: context and, 12-13; social relations and, 247-48. See also knowledge; truth

Ideon Cave, 19-21, 41, 281n6 ignorable, cultivation of, 249-50 ijtihad, 266 Iliad, the, 40 immaculate conception, 23, 136, 153, 159, 192, 299H31, 299n35

immanence: in ancient Greek religion, 21; in the bourgeois faiths, 213-14; Gilga­mesh's contentment in, 46; in Islam, 213; of the Islamic divine, 212-13; ofJesus, 144 (see also Jesus); in nature, 35; of the Old Testament God, 82-83; for Theocritus, 65-66; transcendence and, 240, 275; transimmanence and, 275-76; universal of the New Testament God, 140-41 India: bourgeois society and growth of the state in, 151-53; castes in, 152, 184-85, 190­91; Hinduism in, 195 (see also Hinduism) Indus Valley Civilization, 183 inequality: in Athens, Aristophanes on, 54­57; in Athens, varying forms of, 57-59; the bourgeois echo of the Renaissance period and, 232; of bourgeoisie and pro­letariat (richer and poorer in cities), 61­62, 119-21; Calvinist, 232-33; of city and countryside (bourgeois and pagan), 9, 62, 120-21; civilizationist bias of Axial theorists and, 11; the embrace of abso­lutes and, 8; Horace’s concern with, 67­68; Iron Age rise in, basis of, 117-21; in Islamic countries, 209-10; as moral prob­lem in the teaching ofJesus, 125-26; par­allels between European and Indian, 163; in Roman society, 119-22; in Zhou so­ciety, 69-70. See also class interests bias, 226, 228, 263 Iraq: Epic of Gilgamesh, 32-35; Palace of Ashurbanipal, discovery of, 31-32 Irenaeus, 300n55 Ishaq, Ibn, 303n59

Ishtar, 32-40, 42-44, 83, 271, 283n39, 292n102, 310n14

Islam: agricultural and ecological concerns in, 214-15; desire, muted concern for the problem of, 202-3, 208-10; as electrum faith, 182, 197; empire and, 206-8; his­torical, social, and religious context of, 197-201; the Jahiliyah (days of ignorance, i.e., pre-Islam), 199-201; the Kaaba as holiest spot in, 200, 213; openness to debate and deliberation, 266; place, focus on, 213; popularity of, 157-58; the Qur’an and Sunnah as foundations of, 201-6; sexual desire and relations of gender and power, 210-12; Shia-Sunni schism, 207-8; in South Asia countries, 196. See also Muhammad

Islamic banking, 209

Israel, ancient: Hasmonean Dynasty, 98, 115; invasions of, 97-98; leadership of, the­ology of unity and, 99; Old Testament as context of, 80 (see also Old Testament); patriarchy in, 104; political history of the Bible, 92-96; the Roman Empire and, 115-17; as two separate kingdoms, 96-97. See also Old Testament or Hebrew Bible

Itzhaki, Rabbi Shlomo, 309n4

Jacobovici, Simcha, 297n82

Jainism, 167-68, 184, 207, 302n39 Jaspers, Karl, 10-11, 280n30

Jerusalem: growth of, 96; Herod's rebuild­ing of the Second Temple, 116-17; the Wailing Wall, 116-17

Jesus: agricultural metaphors used by, 114; animal sacrifice, banning of, 194; birth­day of, pagan traditions and the dating of, 181-82; birth family, quasi-kinship and harsh treatment of, 132-33; birth of, 123, 295n37; the Buddha and, parallels between, 158-59; for Christian Gnos­tics, 177; context for the life of, 115-17; farming, advice to abandon, 115; farming, lack of discussion of, 113-14; framing, difficulty of, 110; as historical figure, 113-14; loyalty demanded by, 128; moral priorities reflected in the ordering of the commandments, 126-28; nonpolitical goodness of, 134-38; Plato's demiurge and, 170; political context for, 123-25;

rabbi, referred to as, 173; radical reconfig­uration of life beyond spirituality, message of, 115; religious writings about, inconsistencies and disagreements in, 113; as the Son, 132; as supernatural, 139-40; wealth and economic inequality as moral problems in the teaching of, 125-26 Jesus movement: disloyalty and desire, reck­

oning with, 128-31; Jewish nationalism and, 134, 144; quasi-kinship of faith, built on a, 131-34, 138; rural people and, 143-44 Jewish nationalism: Jesus and, 123-25, 134;

legacy ofJesus and, 144 jihad, 255, 3O9n47 John of Patmos, 253 Josephus, Titus Flavius, 113, 171, 3oon49 Joshua, 87 Josiah (king ofJudah), 103-4 Judaism: animal sacrifice disappeared from,

194; bourgeois concerns, focus on, 182;

Christianity and, 173, 295n43; conversion to, 293n21; Islam and, 204, 208; Nazi Ger­many and, 233-36; New Judaism, 172-73, 177, 207; openness to debate, 265-66; pagan traditions and, 182; Passover as an electrum celebration, 270-71; place, focus on, 213; political factions of in bib­lical times, 171-72; popularity of, 158;

Zoroastrianism and, 165-66 Judas the Galilean, 295n38

Kaaba, the, 200, 206, 213 Al-Kalbi, Hisham Ibn, 199 karma, 157, 190-92

Kessler, Rainer, 294n26, 294n28 Khadija, 198-99, 205, 211, 303n44 Khaldun, Ibn, 208-9 Khan, Salman, 196 Kindt, Julia, 286n30 kinship: bourgeois sex and, 130-31; caste and, 152, 157, 184-85; class, disrupted by, 128-29; dharma and, 190; early cities and, 119-20; mechanical solidarity and, 12; pagan birth-based, 139; parallels

between European and Indian declines in tribal-based, 163; quasi-kinship of faith as alternative to, 131-34, 136-38, 143, 145, 204; rural life and, 157, 185; sex and, 130 knowledge: of awesome coolness of the

universe, 245-47; boundaries and, 257; commonality and individuality of, 248­49; cultivation of, 249, 257, 263 (see also cultivation of the ignorable); identity and, 249-50; interests bias and, 226; power relations and, 247-49. See also truth Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, 301n5 Kohn, Eduardo, 283n45 Korea, Republic of (South), 178-79 Krishna (Lord and avatar of Vishnu, Hindu god of preservation), 189-92, 299n35 Kuru, 187-88

Lakota Sioux, 237-40 Land Between the Lakes National Recrea­tion Area, 227

LAND (Livelihood, Agroecology, Nutri­tion, and Development) Project, 28-29 Laozi (Li Ehr), 68-74 Lau, D. C., 287n40 Laudato Si' (Francis), 270 Layard, Henry Austen, 282n34, 283n35 Le Guin, Ursula, 287n40 Leibnitz, Gottfried, 241-42 Lemche, Niels P., 291n89 Lichterman, Paul, 248 Li Ehr (a.k.a. Laozi), 68-74 Lorenzen, David N., 302n38 loyalty: demanded by Jesus, 128; as moral principle according to Jesus, 127-28; as primary moral principle of the Old Tes­tament, 89-91; in the Qur’an, 208-9; struggle over in the Old Testament, 102-3. See also disloyalty

Lubna of Cordoba, 212 Lucretius Carus, Titus, 284n3 Luther, Martin, 229, 231-32 Lysias, 59

Lysistrata (Aristophanes), 60

Maccabean Revolt, 98 al-Magd, Abu, 173

Mahabharata, the, 185-91, 193 Mahavira (Vardhamana), 166-68, 194 Manichaeism, 3

Martin V, 147 masculine divine, 39-40, 104, 176, 203,

292n1O3

Maximus, Magnus, 4

Maya, the: conception of “city,” absence of,

120; the Popol Vuh and, 22-24 Mazdayasna (Zoroastrianism), 163-66 McKibben, Bill, 7

McMahan, David L., 301n6

Mead, George Herbert, 73 Meeks, Wayne, 298n119

Mercury, Freddie, 163 Merneptah Stele, 94

Mernissi, Fatima, 305^3 Mesha stele, 292n95 mindfulness-based stress reduction

(MBSR), 158

Mitchell, Stephen, 283n40 moderns, 2-3 money, coined, 117-18, 153, 187, 212, 294n23 monolatry, 88-89, 135 monotheism, bourgeois, 142-45 moral entrepreneurs: boundaries of the

absolute, use of, 250-51; bourgeois scrip­tures, cherry-picking, 251-55; meanings of the term, 308-9n32; misleading by, 263; nature, cherry-picking, 255-57 Moses, 78-79, 82, 87, 90, 136 Muhammad: the angel Gabriel and the re­

ligious vision of, 198-99; early life of, 198; as God's Messenger/religious leader, 204, 206; as military leader, 205-6; as a per­son, not a god, 213; as political leader, 205-6; wives of, 199

Muller, Karl, 219-20 multilogical. See truth

Muqaddimah (Khaldun), 208-9 mystery of the divine/universe: Einstein

on, 243-44; in the Ideon Cave, 19; Leib­nitz and Spinoza on, 241-42; openness to, 258 (see also awesome coolness); truth retaining an element of, 267; the Wakan Tanka of the Lakota Sioux, 238-41

al-Nafzawi, Muhammad ibn Muhammad, 210 Nasr, Sayyed, 241

natural conscience: ancient origins of the idea, 48-50; of Augustine, 74; in Bhaga­vad Gita, 191; bourgeois conception of the divine as, 111; Buddhist, 156-57; dis­covery of, 72-74; double inequalities of politics, as a response to, 62; evil, ex­plaining the presence of, 176; of Horace, 66-68, 72, 73-74; ideas about nature as foundation of, 223-24; Jesus’s nonpoliti­cal standing as basis for, 134-35; of Li Ehr in China, 68-71; natural we as third di­mension of (see natural we); New Juda­ism, supernatural basis for in, 172; non­political politics of (see nonpolitical politics); in Old Testament god, absence of, 102; origin and function of, 8; Plato’s “forms” as, 169; questions raised by Aris­tophanes about, 57; Theocritus and the bucolic writers as second nature before second nature, 62-66; of Thoreau, 74; wealth and moral good, relationship of, 53-57; of the will of God, Muhammad as acting on, 206

natural me: of Buddhists, 157; of Christians, 137-38; ofJains, 167; kharma and, 157, 191; of Muslims, 202; natural other and, 72-74, 224, 226; natural we and, 138, 157, 226; as nonpolitical self, 73

natural other: Christians and, 134, 137-39; dharma and, 157, 191; divine, 74; Jesus as a, 134; natural conscience and, 224-26; natural me and, 72-74, 224, 226; religious battles and, 268

natural them: moral entrepreneurs and, 251, 254-55; natural we and, 233-34, 236, 248, 251; natural we and, double construction of, 225, 228

natural we: of Buddhists, 157, 191; Christian quasi-kinship and, 138; Gnostics' suspi­cions regarding, 177; of Hindus, 191;

Jesus and Buddha, talked about by both, 159; of Muslims, 204, 206, 208; natural conscience and, 224-26; natural me and, 138, 157, 226; natural them and, 225, 228, 233-34, 236, 248, 251; natural them and, double construction of, 225, 228; natural them and, trouble coming from distin­guishing, 248; with no natural them, 236 nature: absolutes, as basis for belief in, 223­24; as an absolute, 3, 9, 48; ancient tri­angle of beliefs, as one side of, 7-8; cherry- picked by the moral entrepreneur, 255-57; conundrum of the absolute and, 13-14; the divine and, separation of, 9-10; ety­mology of the term, 49-50; first (as a ma­terial firstness), 49, 65, 287n45; Islamic take on, 214; master or coexist with, popular opinion regarding, 284n2; in the New Testament, 139-42; Old Testament, absence in, 92; as physis, etymological origins of, 49-50; politics, contrasted with, 52-53; second (as a moral good), 49-50, 74-76, 142, 167 (see also natural conscience); the supernatural and an entangled vision of, 21; third (as a moral bad), 141-42, 157, 167-68, 214; Thoreau on, 1-2

nature before nature: entangled visions of (see entangled visions of nature before nature); as first nature, 49; in Hinduism, 192-92; the Old Testament and, 92; Old Testament God as god of, 83-84, 88; in pre-Islamic Arabia, 199; in the Rig Veda, 184; Theocritus employing, 65-66 Ncwadi, Mpumelelo, 13, 27-31, 41, 43, 220,

225, 282n26 Nebuchadnezzar II (king of Babylonia),

97-98

Nephilim, the, 88

Nero (emperor of the Roman Empire), 253 New Age religions, 158

New Judaism, 172-73, 177, 207

New Testament: authoritarianism based on absolute goodness in, 138-39; bourgeois monotheism of, 142-45; economic inequality, teachings ofJesus on, 125-26; farming and “farmer” not discussed in the Gospels, 114; the Gospels as open­ness to multiple truths, 266; Jesus as descended from the house of David, the Gospels on, 124-25; moral priorities in the commandments of Jesus, the Gospels on, 126-28; nature in, 139-42; nonpolitical character ofJesus in, 134-38; quasi-kinship of faith in, 131-34; Reve­lation, 252-54; syncretism suggested in the Gospel ofJohn, 170; Talmud and, parallels between, 172; 39th Festal Letter and, 174; Zoroastrianism and, 166 Newton, Isaac, 267 Nickell, David, 226-27 Nikias, 59

Nirvana, 156-57, 165, 184 nomos, 49-50 nonpolitical politics: the absolute as release into, 257-58; absolute ideas of nature combined with the divine, based on, 233-35; absolutes and, 219; apartheid, 220-23; bourgeois echo and, 233; bour­geois scriptures as basis for, 251; in en­vironmentalism, 226-28; Hitler’s, 233-35; interests bias and, 226; legitimating hier­archy, use of the divine in, 228, 231-33; natural we and them in, 225-26; nature as foundation of, absolute beliefs based on, 223-24; in racism, 220-25

Notre Dame des Doms, 109-10, 145, 229 Nugent, Tony, 310n14

Nusayba bint Ka’b al-Ansariyya, 212

Odyssey, The (Homer), 49 Oldmeadow, Harry, 241 Old Testament or Hebrew Bible: agricul­tural harvest holidays in, 86, 102; agricul­tural sustenance, God and, 84-86; blended Old Testament or Hebrew Bible (continued) divine in, the drive for unity and, 101-2; duotheism in, 104; evils, disloyalty and desire as basic, 89-91; Genesis, 99-100; god of nature before nature, God as, 83-84; harvest offerings, connections to nature and ecology of, 86-87; horrors of as contestable rather than absolute, 251-52; humans, God's interactiveness with, 87-88, 102; immanence of God, 82-83; Job, description of God in, 84; loyalty/disloyalty and the drive for po­litical unity, 99-103; loyalty/disloyalty and the God of the, 89-91; masculinity of the divine, 104; monolatry as version of monotheism, 88-89; “nature,” absence of the word, 92; pagan monotheism in, 104-5; pagan poly-divine theology in, 102-4; personality of God, 87-88; po­litical history of, 92-96, 103-4; politics as a central concern of, 91-92, 102; poly­theism in, 80-82; scholarly history of the period covered by, 96-99; sexism in, 86; supremely political, God as, 102; the Ten Commandments (see Ten Command­ments); transcendent divine, absence of, 92; transcendent God in, 82, 88-89, 92,

99- 102; violence and temper of God in, 77-80; voices of and the creation story,

100- 101; Zoroastrianism and, 165 Olympiodorus, 300n42

1001 Arabian Nights, 210 Oral Torah, 171-72 Orne, Jason, 296n63 Ottoman Empire, 304^7 Ovid, 72

pagan environmentalism, 273 pagan monotheism, 104, 166, 252 pagan/paganism: America’s country peo­ple as no longer, 111; blood ties as tran­scendence for, 133; bourgeois and, con­flict between, 269-70; Buddhism and, 182, 195; Christianity and, 180-82, 230-31; electrum faiths as balance of bourgeois and, 182; electrum saints and, 231; Juda­ism and, 182; kinship and, 139 (see also kinship); meaning of, 12, 43-44; poly­divine theology in ancient Israel, 102-4; Revelation and, 254; visions of nature before nature as, 43-45; in Wakan Tanka, 240; Zoroastrianism and, 166

Pagels, Elaine, 7, 253, 3O1n62 Palais des Papes, 145, 147 pantheism, 240-41

Parliament of Women, A (Aristophanes),

52, 60

Passover, 270-71

Paul (Apostle), 144-45, 173, 293n11 Penia (Greek goddess of poverty), 56, 58 perennial philosophy: diverse commonal­ity of religious truth, as term for, 241; inadequacies of the term, 245; scientific studies of nature and, 241-45. See also awesome coolness

Perfumed Garden, The (al-Nafzawi), 210-11 Persians, the, 98

Phainippos, 59

Pharisees, the, 171-73

Phillip II (king of Macedon), 3oon43 physis: etymological origins of, 48-50; in the New Testament, 139; nomos, contrast with, 49-50; Theocritus, absence from work of, 65

Pine Ridge Reservation, 237-38

place: communities of, 41 (see also commu- nity/communities); concrete experience of, 41. See also context

Plato, 168-70, 176, 240

Plutus (Greek god of wealth), 54-56 Polanyi, Karl, 294n23 politics: absolutes and, 14-15 (see also non­political politics); Aristophanes and, 53; in Athens of Plato's time, 169; bourgeois life and, 61; bucolic writing, absence in, 64; contentiousness of contrasted with nature, 52-53; the dao as beyond, 70; divine in the Bible, absence of, 135-36; double inequalities associated with the expansion of cities and, 62; of ecology and the divine in pagan, 44; Islamic state building, Muhammad and, 205-6; Jesus and, 115; the “Jesus movement” and, 123­25; moral ambiguity of, 48; moral ten­sions of bourgeois life and, 121; multilogi- cal/multilocal truth of a better, electrum transimmanence and, 275-76; in nature before nature traditions, 41-42; non­absolute and perpetual openness, embrac­ing, 276-77; nonpolitical in the natural conscience of Bhagavad Gita, 191-92; Old Testament, as a central concern of, 91-92, 102; political history of the Bible, 92-96; power, dialogue as an exchange of, 276; scholarly history of the biblical period, 96-99; unity and the evil of disloyalty in biblical history, 99-102; of wanting in Buddhism, 156; Weber's definition of, 286n31. See also empire; state, the

Pollan, Michael, 7 poly-divinity of nature before nature tradi­tions, 36

polytheism, 35-36, 80-82 Popol Vuh, 22-24, 42-43, 45, 66, 88, 252, 281n20

Porphyry of Tyre, 281n5

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI), 111 Priapus (Roman fertility god), 40-41, 283n54

Prosic, Tamara, 99

Protestantism, 229, 231-33 Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE people), 19-20, 50

Ptolemy, 64-65 Pythagoras, 281n5

al-Qasim, Fatima bint Abi, 212 quasi-kinship of faith, 131-33, 138, 204, 213 Qur’an, the: the Bible and, 202; divine immanence in, 213; ecological relations, God as the power behind, 215; guidance provided by, 202-4, 206; a heavenly garden as the place of the afterlife, 214; jihad used in, 255, 309n47; as literary masterpiece, 201; loyalty (asabiya), em­phasis on, 208-9; moral entrepreneurs and passages from, 254-55; Muhammad and the origin of, 198, 201; patriarchal in­terpretation of, 305n93; sustenance, God as the source of, 214; wealth and usury, guidance regarding, 209

racism: apartheid, 220-25; backward pagan versus urban civilized and, 270; of the moral entrepreneur, 255-57; of Nazi Germany, 233-34

Rassam, Hormuzd, 32, 282n34, 283^5 Rawlinson, Henry, 283^5

realism in nature before nature, 40-43 reincarnation, 156, 167, 190. See also samsara religion(s): ancestor veneration and, 28-31, 43; bourgeois life and the desire not to desire, 150; collective identities and, 248; diversity and changing truths of faith tra­ditions, value of, 267-69; divinities in na­ture before nature traditions, characteris­tics of, 35-36; in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, 28; empires and (see empire); greening of, tapping pagan-bourgeois synergies for, 270-72; Mayan and the Popol Vuh, 22-24; pagan (see pagan); pantheism, 240; parallels across tradi­tions, perennial philosophy as, 240-41; parallels between European and Indian contexts and, 163; in pre-Islamic Arabia, 199-201; relative popularity of major, 157-58; science and, 241-45; the state and, 145-47; Sumerian, 32-35; syncretism (see syncretism); Wakan Tanka for the Lakota Sioux, 238-41. See also mystery of the divine/universe; names of specific religions

religious atheism, 245

Rig Veda, 183-84

Roman Empire: Christianity and, 145-47; class society in, Iron Age rise of, 119; as

Roman Empire (contunued)

context for Jesus and Christianity, 115-17, 123-24; the Jews and, 98; paganism, de­cree against, 43; social class and urban­rural inequality in, 120-23; urbanism following the collapse of, 230-31

Romans, ancient: Dyeus to deus (deity) for,

19-20; the natural conscience of Horace,

66-68; nature, etymology of, 49; nature for, range of positions on, 71-72 rural life. See agriculture and rural life

Sadducees, the, 171-72

Sahlins, Marshall, 298n2 Salome Alexandra (queen ofJudea), 171 samsara, 167-68, 190-92

sannyasa, 300^8

Sapir-Hen, Lidar, 290n68 Sargon II (king of Assyria), 97 Scheidel, Walter, 307n19

Schuon, Frithjof, 241 science: contestation and interpretation,

openness to, 267; religion and, 241-45 second nature (as a moral good), 49­

50, 74-76, 142, 167. See also natural conscience

Seleucids, the, 98

self, the: natural connected to a nonpolitical community, 137-38; natural me as au­thentic, 74 (see also natural conscience);

nonpolitical as the natural me, 73 Semites, 94-95

“Sermon at Benares” (the Buddha), 155-57 sex: in Arabian culture, 210-11; bourgeois,

130-31, 153, 269; disruptive power of class and, 129-31; in Hinduism, 186-88, 192; in­teractiveness of the Old Testament divine including, 88; for Jains, 167; Jesus and, 136; in nature before nature traditions, 37-38; Siddartha Gautama and, 153-54 sexism: overlooking of in Christianity and

Buddhism, 210; social stature of women in Islam, 212; in the Trinity, 132. See also gender Shalmaneser V (king of Assyria), 97 Shamash (Sumerian god), 33-34, 42 Shamhat (priestess in Epic of Gilgamesh), 33, 38-39

Shaw, Maria C., 283n51

Shaw, Philip A., 310n14

Shiduri (goddess of fermentation in Epic of

Gilgamesh), 39, 46

Shinto, 182, 195

Shramanas, 166 Siddhartha Gautama, 150-51, 153-57,

299n36. See also Buddha, the

Silberman, Neil Asher, 290n68

Simon of Cyrene, 293n10

Siricius, 5

slavery and slaves: in Athens, 51, 54, 57-59; in the Bible, 78; Islam and, 205; sex imposed on, 131

Smith, George, 32, 34

Smith, Huston, 241

Smith, Mark S., 288n25, 290n63 solidarity: organic distinguished from mechanical, 11-12, 305n89

solipsism, 265

Solomon, 83 solstice, the, 181

Sommerstein, Alan H., 286n29

Sotades, 64-65

sound: “chuckling” of a lapstrake skiff,

74-75; memory of, 47

South Africa: Eastern Cape Province, 27-31; gold mining and apartheid in, 220-25

Spinoza, Baruch, 242 spiritual agnosticism, 244 state, the: centralized religion and, 117,

145, 171, 173, 177; empire and, 5, 8-9, 11, 92-93, 115, 142, 145-47, 163, 169, 182, 190, 206, 288; expansion of power, Iron Age innovations and, 118-19; growth, associa­tion with concern about desire, 8-9, 177, 182, 269; growth of in India, bourgeois society and, 151-53, 187, 190; Jesus and resistance to, 124, 134, 136-37, 143-46;

Muhammad's state building, 205-6; state religion and, 5, 145, 173, 177, 3oon58. See also politics

steel tools, 118

Steuco, Agostino, 241

Stevenson, Gregory, 252-53

Stoddart, William, 241

Stone, Elizabeth C., 119, 294n25

Stull, Valerie, 282n26 Sumeria, 32-35

Sunnah, the, 201-2 supernature: as Augustine's absolute, 6; dis­tinct from nature and human, becoming more, 142; entangled with nature and human, 21, 38 (see also ancient triangle; entangled visions of nature before na­ture); faith in, the good and bad gained through, 14; pantheism and, 240 syncretism: of Christianity and Buddhism, 158, 162; contextualism and, 170; contex­tual parallels underlying, 162-63; Plato’s forms and, 169-70; Zoroastrianism and, 164-66

Tacitus, 113

Talmud, the, 172, 265-66, 3O3n63

Tarico, Valerie, 310n14 tawhid, 203 taxes and taxation: in bourgeois India, 151­52; harvest festivals and, 117; Iron Age in­novations and, 117-19

Taylor, Bron, 270

Tellier, Luc-Normand, 232

Ten Commandments: desire addressed in, 91; giving of, 78; Jesus’ moral priorities compared to those of the, 126-28; loyalty, priority of, 90-91; Moses’ breaking of, 79; temple built by Solomon, transferred to, 83 theism, 243

Theocritus, 62-67, 72 theodicy, problems of, 176 Theodosius I (emperor of Roman Empire), 145

Theodosius II (emperor of Roman Empire),

43-44 third nature (as a moral bad), 141-42, 157,

167-68, 214

39th Festal Letter (Athanasius), 174 Thompson, Dick, 110-12 Thompson, Sharon, 110-12 Thoreau, Henry David: Augustine and, comparison of, 6; Bhagavad Gita, reading of, 287n48; evils of desire, separation from people as antidote for, 274; laundry done by his mother, 279n12; moral value of the environment, appreciation for, 284n2; Walden Pond, thoughts while at, 1-3, 72, 272; wildness as the preservation of the world, 14, 74

“Three Lions of the Deep Earth, The,” 259-62 Timaeus (Plato), 170

Tonnies, Ferdinand, 11-12, 297n1O3 transcendence: blood ties as source of, 133;

in the bourgeois faiths, 213; immanence and, 240, 275-76; male economic, coined money and, 212; in the New Testament, 133, 136, 143; in the Old Testament, 82, 88-89, 92, 99-102, 240-41; of the Zo- roastrian god, 164-65 transimmanence, 275-76 trinitarianism, 174-75 Trinity, the, 132 truth: changing in faith traditions, value of,

267-69; grounded knowledge, 265; as a human construct, 262-63; jewel of, 264­65, 276; multilogical, 8, 259-62, 264-65, 276-77; mystery of the unknown and, 267; one-sided yielded by absolutes, 263­64; relative, not relativist, 264-65. See also knowledge

Tutankamun (pharoah of Egypt), 95 two basic evils, 90, 136, 143. See also desire;

disloyalty

ummah, 204-6

Unitarian Universalism, 158 urbanism/urbanization: in biblical times,

96; connectedness in the Axial Age, a universal/transcendent divine and, 10-11; urbanism/urbanization (continued) the embrace of absolutes and, 8; in India, bourgeois society and, 152; Iron Age in­novations and social inequality, 119-21; as moral good, evolutionary bias and, 11-12; parallels between European and Indian, 163; receding of after the collapse of the Roman Empire, 230-31; the Renaissance and, 232; ways of life, rural versus urban, 269. See also city/cities

Urban VI, 147

usury, 209

Valentinian (Gnostic thinker), 177 Valentinian III (emperor of Roman Em­pire), 43-44, 145

Vardhamana (Mahavira), 166-68, 184-85 Vedas, the, 183-84

Vedic Civilization, 183

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), 71-72, 287n45

von Falkenhausen, Lothar, 120 Vyasa, 185-88, 193, 302n23

Wakan Tanka (great mystery), 238-41, 244 Walker, James R., 237-40

wealth: Aristophanes' fantasy about, 54-57; centralization of in India, 152-53; con­centration of, Iron Age innovations and, 118-19; Great Departure of the Bud­dha from, 150-51, 153-54; inequality in Athens, 57-60; as moral problem in the teaching ofJesus, 125-26; the Qur’an on, 202-3, 209

Wealth (Aristophanes), 53-61, 137, 169, 285^4 Weber, Max, 232-33, 286n31, 307^3

Webster, Thomas B. L., 285n16

Wheeler, Robert Eric Mortimer, 302n16 Williams, Raymond, 50

Wilson, Barrie, 297n82

Wohlforth, Charles, 7

Wounded Knee Massacre, 237-38 Wright, Robert, 7, 11, 289n54

Ximenez, Francisco, 22-23

yoga, 158, 190

Yoruba of West Africa, 120

Zaynab bint Ahmad, 212

Zealots, the, 171

Zeus, 19-21, 36-44, 54, 83, 131, 280-81n2,

299n35

Zhuangzi, 71, 74

Zijderveld, Anton, 310n28

Zimansky, Paul E., 119, 294n25

Zominthos, 281n4

Zoroastrianism, 163-66, 170-71