| INTRODUCTION | 1 |
| CHAPTER I. THE RELIGION OF THE LINEAGE-BASED SOCIETIES | 8 |
| I. The lineage-bases societies in ancient Asia | 10 |
| 1. The double constraint of production and reproduction | 11 |
| 2. The dominace of the kinship structure | 14 |
| II. Ideology and the social functions of religion | 15 |
| 1. The symbolic reading of the relationship of men to nature: animism | 16 |
| 2. The symbolic reading of the contradictions inherent in social relations | 18 |
| 3. Origin, finality and global meaning of life | 25 |
| III. Religion among contemporary lineage-based societies | 26 |
| CHAPTER II. THE RELIGIONS OF ASIA IN PRECAPITALIST CLASS SOCIETIES | 32 |
| lineage-bases societies to precapitalist class societies | 34 |
| 1. Hinduism | 35 |
| 1.1. The establishment of the Aryans and their religious production | 35 |
| and of a new religious production | 39 |
| 2. Buddism | 45 |
| 3. Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism | 51 |
| 3.1. Confucianism | 54 |
| 3.2. Taoism | 56 |
| 3.3. Chinese Buddhism | 58 |
| 4. Islam | 62 |
| 4.1. The pre-Islamic Arab societies | 62 |
| 4.2. The socio-political context and the genesis of Islam | 65 |
| 4.3. The establismhment of the Islamic politico-religious entity | 69 |
| 5. Class societies and Asian religious systems | 76 |
| systems in societies with a tributary mode of production | 78 |
| 1. Religion and the tributary mode of production | 78 |
| 1.1. Characteristics of the tributary mode of production | 78 |
| 1.2. Differences between the tributary and the feudal modes of production | 81 |
| 1.3. The place of religion in the tributary mode of production | 84 |
| 2. The Chola Kingdom in southern India, type of an Asian tributary society | 88 |
| 2.1. Political domination and lineage-type structure in the Pandyan period | 88 |
| mode of production that prevailed in the Ancient Pandyan Kingdom | 96 |
| feudal mode of production | 106 |
| 1. The Kandyan feudal system and Theravada Bddhism | 107 |
| 2. Theravada Buddhism as the State religion in south and south-east Asia | 136 |
| Conclusions: Religion and precapitalist Asian societies | 149 |
| INTRODUCTION OF THE COLONIAL CAPITALIST MODE OF PRODUCTION | 160 |
| Buddhism in Sri Lanka | 161 |
| 2. Western colonization and its impact on Theravada Buddhism | 190 |
| THE ASIAN RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY | 226 |
