ABSTRACT
The 'History of Religions' indeed raises a problem of reference: the English expression is fairly neutral, simply denoting the study of religions within a historical framework. The historical interpretation of the raw data is perhaps more open to constant reassessment, and this must apply all the more to larger interpretations about world-views, mythology, and metaphysics. The Chaoskampf mythological tradition in the Indian material has spawned a vast number of versions. The general cultural history of the ancient Mediterranean region it emphasizes the considerable importance of Ugarit and its traditions as a source for many surrounding mythological and cosmological traditions. Ugarit more than any site in the near east, perhaps, exemplifies a fact of ancient history which is all too easily overlooked in an era of increasing specialization. This is that trade, war and diplomacy carried ideas over vast distances, and the most powerful of these, couched typically in the language of poetry and myth in the ancient world.
