Essential sacred writings from around the world / Mircea Eliade.

Originally published: From primitives to Zen. New York : Harper & Row, 1967.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 635-643) and index.

Divinities of primitives (pre-literate societies) -- African high gods -- North American Indians -- Polynesia, Colombia, Labrador, New Guinea -- Gods of the ancient Near East, ancient India, and Japan -- Greek gods and heroes, and the Iranian supreme being, Ahura-Mazda -- Islam: Allah and his prophet -- Myths of creation of the world -- A myth of beginning and end -- The creation of man -- Myths of the origin of death -- Myths of the flood -- Sacred world, sacred life, sacred time -- Origin and destiny of the soul -- and the powers of mana -- Types of sacrifice -- Rituals, oracles, prescriptions, devotion -- Prayers and hymns -- Patterns of initiation -- Gods, heroes, and death -- Death and the intermediate state -- Funerary rituals -- Egyptian conceptions of death -- The roads to the nether world -- Greek and Roman conceptions of death and immortality -- Orpheus myths -- Paradises -- The end of the world -- Messianic prophecies and millenarian movements.

Shamans and medicine men -- Holy personages -- Forms of asceticism -- Prophets and founders of religions -- Spiritual techniques and mystical experiences -- Techniques of yoga -- Japanese Buddhism -- Zen Buddhism -- Islam -- Different understandings of the human condition -- Humility, wisdom, tolerance -- Egyptian teaching -- Greek thought -- Jain belief -- A Buddhist emperor and philosopher: Ashoka -- Confucius -- Buddha explains the middle path -- The ultimate reality: questions and answers -- Reflecting on gods, the self, and the God.