ABSTRACT
The twentieth century has witnessed two world wars as well as the rise and decline of fascism and communism. It would appear that we have—in this context, fortunately—failed to produce an ideology of an enduring nature. However, several of the major world religious traditions which emerged in the past, appear to have functioned over large spans of space and time as guiding ideologies. Indeed, their parallels and certain near-simultaneous developments have been a topic of fascination to historians.
