Just a very few years ago no one would have thought of introducing an article with this title, because only more or less isolated religious traits and complexes of traits were known to be common to Mexico and China on the one hand, like the series of animal etc. names used in the calendar, and to Mexico, India and Indianized Southeast Asia on the other, like the belief in four or five destructions and re-creations of the world, the pachisi-patolli game connected with the four directions, the tearing out of the heart of a still-living victim of human sacrifice, the piercing of the tongue by priests and the pulling through of thin objects, and a considerable number of motives in religious art, including the representation of specific gods with their characteristic paraphernalia.