Have you ever found yourself, perhaps after visiting a museum, an art gallery, or a historic site, wanting to know more about a long-lost civilization, a fortress that was bitterly fought over ages ago, or a ruined city sitting mute but poignant in the midst of what was once a thriving human world but is now a trackless jungle or a lonely plain?
If such experiences have gripped your imagination, then you have probably also wondered how, more generally, groups of human beings dealt at different times and places with the challenges of their environments, and how, in turn, the environment shaped past peoples across the unchronicled millennia of human prehistory.

What could the beliefs and traditions of a Zoroastrian, a person of Jewish faith, a Buddhist, a follower of Confucius, or a Christian have in common? How do religions evolve over time? This course offers a rare opportunity to relate your own spiritual questions to a variety of ancient quests for meaning and transcendence. In Religions of the Axial Age, Professor Mark W. Muesse shows you the historical conditions in which the world religions arose, while letting you see how they answered shared metaphysical and human dilemmas. He helps you think about specific traditions while pondering the common processes of religious development. Not content to study religion merely from books, Professor Muesse has also observed and participated in these traditions in their native contexts, especially in South Asia. Thus his approach to the study of religion is not solely academic or historical but also reflects a deep respect for religious experience as it is felt and lived. You will explore fascinating aspects of several major world religions at the time of their birth. Although Professor Muesse emphasizes the early religious traditions of Iran, South Asia, and China, he also shows how these compare, contrast, and contribute to contemporary Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.