The essays reprinted here, with minor adjustments and standardization in presentation, with regard to spelling, the system of reference and a common bibliography, and occasional references to more recent discussion, range from 1978 to 2004.

My first teaching post, in the University of Glasgow, held from 1970 to 1988, with intervals in the Universities of Stirling and Ibadan, required me to teach Israelite Religion and Indian Religion(s). Colleagues working in Religious Studies will be familiar with the required spread. At times these seemed to be two quite distinct and largely unconnected worlds, a perception encouraged by colleagues jealous of encroachments on their territory by others with ideas from outside, and unhappily still all too rife in a political climate which should be encouraging interdisciplinarity, if for no better reason than to demonstrate to our paymasters that it is academic and not financial considerations which should shape the modern university.

Fortunately, I became increasingly convinced that the themes common to both areas indicated that there was room for comparative work, and encouraged a recognition of the deeper cultural ties which already in early historical times connected different parts of the world. So the description of Pangloss' discipline as Métaphysico-théologo-cosmolo-nigo-logie (Voltaire, Candide, chapter 1) is not to be taken here as a satirical label, but rather as recognition of connections that really do exist. My comparative papers are not reprinted here, but are mentioned in the bibliography as Wyatt 1985c, 1986b, 1988a, 1989 and 1990a.