In the first millennium BCE, India stood at the forefront of what we have come to call the “Axial Age.”

The plains of the Ganges witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of spiritual and philosophical creativity that, over the centuries, gave rise to the traditions we now know as Buddhism, Jainism, Vedanta, Yoga, and Samkhya.

Guided largely by sages and renunciants, these traditions shaped a pattern of spirituality and practical philosophy of remarkable depth and lasting influence. Given the contemporary popularity of yoga and Buddhist forms of meditation, this Indic soteriological matrix—the very heart of Hinduism and Buddhism—has proved astonishingly relevant, not only throughout Asia but also in the West.