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scholar, that is one who asks the questions of the believer, not merely the questions of the
historian’—, Koch delves into insights which have ‘the certainty of religious Truth and the
arguments for that certainty are appeals to revelation, intuition, or some data that go beyond
space and time limitations’ (Minor, 38). Koch is also trying to show that these insights which
he has found in the Bhagavad Gita are not really so foreign to Western traditions, that, while a
sacred text will have elements which are ‘temporary and perishable, belonging to the ideas of
the people of the period and the country in which it is produced’ (Minor, 38), there are also the
eternal and imperishable elements which are applicable to contemporary Western society.
David Tacey argues for a such a spiritual infusion of ancient wisdom in Western culture
to bring about a ‘re-enchantment’ of society, with a new understanding of man’s relationship
with nature which goes far beyond symbiosis to a recognition of shared identity. Krishna
Chaitanya develops this idea, writing that Western society has been motivated on the principle
of self-interest formulated in 1776 by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations. The eventuality of
universal prosperity predicted by Smith has, however, led man to a ‘war on nature’, exploiting
and polluting the planet’s resources, and to a ‘war on his brethren in the form of exploitation
through monopoly, colonialism, multinational economic imperialism and annihilation through
nuclear armament’. This selfishness was already a major theme of the Mahabharata, as the
‘warriors who gyrated to destruction like moths into fire were all fired by selfishness, or were
victims of selfishness’. Selfishness, he writes, exposing perhaps the real problem 20 th century
critics have in judging Billy Kwan’s actions, ‘is basic for Smith, for the Gita, it is altruism that
is basic’ (Chaitanya, 25).
This is one fundamental aspect of the synthesis of ancient traditions which Zimmer was
writing about. The Vedas prescribed sacrifice to the gods so that the gods would reward man
with rain and prosperity. Zimmer interpreted the native Indus Valley philosophies—from
which there are nevertheless no extant documents—as arguing that such selfish, outward
expression merely complicated the effort to remove the impurities on the soul. The Gita
teaches that one must perform his required work, including sacrifice, but not with reward in
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