ABSTRACT
European societies after the fall of Rome would not simply adhere to a unified set of classical or Christian ideas, just as South Asian societies would not be united in accepting Hindu or Muslim tradition, but classical civilizations did offer ideas and representations that would often help people experiencing historical change make sense of their lives. Recent social scientists working on contemporary Indian aging claim to see anticipations of modern issues of social welfare in the distant past, but scholars of ancient and medieval India have questioned the Western idealization of Asian aging. It also has an equally automatic urge to contrast Mediterranean antiquity with the ancient civilizations of Asia, which are often presented as more respectful of old age. That assumption carries over to the present in the form of suspicions that in South Asia and East Asia, 'traditional veneration of the aged survived longer and ran deeper than anything found in Europe or the Americas.
