Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Globalization : world religions in everyone's hometown -- Understanding religious experience and its expressions -- The great transition : from tribal life to urban life and the emergence of world religions -- The great religious stories of the world -- Modernization in global perspective -- Modern colonialism, the socialist challenge, and the end of modernity -- Postmodern trends in a postcolonial world -- Conclusion: We are all heretics in the postmodern situation -- Indigenous religions -- Origins of homo religiosus : prehistory -- Indigenous religious traditions : soul belief and afterlife -- Indigenous religions today -- Hinduism -- Encountering modernity : Hindu challenges to India as a secular state -- Premodern Hinduism : the formative era -- Premodern Hinduism : the classical era (180 BCE-900 CE) -- Premodern Hinduism : the post-classical era (900 CE-1500 CE) -- Hinduism and modernity -- Hinduism and postmodern trends in a postcolonial world -- Hindu festival practice -- The religious institutions of contemporary Hinduism -- Buddhism : ways to Nirvana -- Encounter with modernity : socially "engaged Buddhism" -- Premodern Buddhism : the formative era -- Premodern Buddhism : the classical era -- The core doctrines -- Premodern Buddhism : Buddhist expansion -- Buddhism and modernity -- Buddhism and postmodern trends in a postcolonial world -- East Asian religions : traditions of human cultivation and natural harmony -- Encounter with modernity : postcolonial Confucian economics -- East Asian religions in the premodern era -- East Asian religions in the early modern era -- East Asian religions and postmodern trends in a postcolonial world -- Islam in Asia -- The dawn of Islam in Asia -- The Islamic tradition -- Jihad -- The challenge of European colonialism -- Globalization : from new to New Age religions -- New religions -- New Age religions -- Religious postmodernism and global ethics.