Fee: $495

This online course explores India and Asia and the world's religious civilizations--Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, which had their origins there. These civilizations delved into the cyclical existence of the cosmos; developed forms of contemplative discipline; encouraged quiet, ethical, and social observance; and gave birth to literary epics of divine proportion and wondrous expressions of life's fragile beauty.

From India and Islamic Asia, participants read The Bhagavad-Gita; selections from the Buddha; poems by the Sufi mystic, Rumi; and E. M. Forster's A Passage to India.

From China, participants read the Tao Te Ching; The Analects of Confucius; selected Ch'an masters; and 2003 Nobel Prize-winner Gao Xingjian's novel, Soul Mountain.

From Japan participants read The Tale of Genji; poems by Matsuo Basho (Zen Buddhism); selected Noh plays; 1994 Nobel Prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter.

Instructor: Leonard Koff, PhD, Associate, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.