Answer FOUR from the following SIX questions.

In each instance write a concise account of what the text is (date, language, history), and then try to identify what seems to you its most important contributions to the history of religion.

Answers must be properly referenced, references are to be in footnotes instead of bibliography and the total word limit strictly adhered to.

1. ‘There, further on, the echoing mansion stands of mighty Hades, god of the lower world, and feared Persephone’.

2. ‘For concentration is better than mere practice, and meditation is better than contemplation; but higher than meditation is surrender in love of the fruit of one’s actions, for on surrender follows peace’.

3. ‘The Master said, “Abroad, to serve the high ministers and nobles; at home, to serve one’s father and elder brothers; in all duties to the dead not to dare to not exert to exert one’s self; and not to be overcome of wine – Which of these things do I attain to?’

4. ‘Avalokita, the holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the wisdom that has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, he beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own being they were empty.’

5. ‘Among the prophets of Samaria I saw this repulsive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray’.

6. ‘They say: “Allah has begotten a son”. Allah forbid! His is what the heavens and the earth contain; all things are obedient to Him.  Creator of the heavens and the earth!  When he decrees a thing, He need only say “Be”, and it is’