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This volume describes the interactions between religions and political and social institutions in Anatolia on the basis of religious ideas and practices, starting with archaeological evidence from the end of the third millennium BCE. The first written information about religious matters appears in ancient Assyrian letters, before a rich written tradition started with the emergence of the ancient Hittite Empire in the 17th century BCE. Following the downfall of the Hittite Empire at the beginning of the 12th century, a few neo-Hittite states used the older religious traditions to support their claim to legitimacy, but combined them with innovations, which are presented in conclusion in the book=s final chapter.

Die drei iranischen Religionen stehen in Wechselwirkung mit der Gesellschaft, die – geschichtlich und gegenwärtig – nicht auf das Staatsgebiet der heutigen Islamischen Republik Iran beschränkt ist. Der Zoroastrismus ist im ostiranischen Kulturraum, d.h. in zentralasiatischen Gebieten, entstanden, das Yezidentum ist immer eng mit den kurdischen Raum verknüpft gewesen und das Bahā'ītum stammt zwar aus dem persischen Milieu, hat sich aber bereits in den ersten Jahrzehnten seiner Existenz über den Iran Raum hinaus verbreitet. Daher behandelt das Buch in ausgewogener Weise das unterscheidend Eigene und das verbindend Gemeinsame der Religionen. Dies geschieht durch einen weitgehend parallelen Aufbau der drei Hauptkapitel, in denen die Entwicklung jeder Religion, ihre Weltbilder und rituellen Praktiken sowie Organisationsformen als gesellschaftliche Gruppe dargestellt werden. Das Schlusskapitel bettet sie in den religiösen Pluralismus und die Religionspolitik der Islamischen Republik Iran ein. Dadurch wird das Buch für Religionshistoriker und Theologen in gleicher Weise relevant wie für Islamwissenschaftler, Iranisten und Politik- bzw. Sozialwissenschaftler in Bezug auf den Nahen Osten.

'Religions'are always costly - one has to give offerings (with material value) to the gods, one has to provide the salary for religious specialists who offer their service for their clients, one has to arrange festivals and liturgies - and of course, one has to provide the material means for building temples or shrines. But these costs also repay - as the gods give health or well-being as reward for the offerings. Even if one can never be absolutely certain about such a reward, one at least might earn social reputation because of one's (financial) involvement in religion. But temples are also economic centres -'employing'(often in close relation to the palace) people as workers, craftsmen or'intellectuals'in different positions whose'costs of living'are supplied by the temple. Individual religious specialists receive payment for their service to cover their own costs of living. Although this might sound'modern', religion and economy were intertwined with each other in ancient society also. For this reason, the papers of this conference volume analyse and discuss how the cults, rituals and institutions in Anatolia in the 2nd and 1st millennium contribute to the economic process in those areas.

The final volume of this three-part work on Buddhism discusses the various schools of Mahayana in East Asia. The presentation of Buddhism in China and Japan naturally plays a major role here. A special aspect worth emphasizing is that the forms of Buddhism that developed in Vietnam and Korea are given independent chapters and are not treated merely as a marginal appendix to the influence of Chinese Buddhism on Vietnam, or with a reduction of Korea to being a mere conduit and mediator of Chinese Buddhism to Japan. Since various forms of Buddhism have also come to the West since the nineteenth century, an extensive chapter on Western Buddhism closes this multivolume religious history of Buddhism.

Following the first volume, which described Buddhism in India, this volume discusses the historical and doctrinal development of Theravada Buddhism in its?classical= homelands (Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos), as well as its spread and revival in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia. The various schools of Tibetan Buddhism are also presented in detail and placed in the context of Tibetan history, and local forms of Tibetan Buddhism in Bhutan and among the ethnic groups of Mongolia are also described. A final chapter discusses Buddhism among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia before their conversion to Islam.