What has Athens to do with Jerusalem or Bombay? Tradition and the liberal arts

Jerusalem was an unlikely, relatively remote focal point of migration during the Hellenistic period. Pilgrims travelled to Jerusalem for festivals from the towns and cities of the empire - Alexandria, Tarsus, Athens and Rome itself - places where Jews lived amidst Hellenized culture and studied in its academies. Athens stood for Greek philosophy, the academy, science, human reason; Jerusalem for the Hebrew culture, religion, the church, the synagogue, faith. The author went to India in 1976 to interview Srivaishnava acharyas and sishyas because he thought that acharyas teach and transmit the religious tradition. Interviews made it clear that few acharyas are teachers; rather, they are hereditary religious specialists who initiate young people as Srivaishnava Hindus. Bombay represents Asia, an Orient that fascinated earlier generations of scholars. Academic study of Asia and of other parts of the world distant from England and Europe was spurred by colonialism, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.