I. Globalization Globalization is a complex concept. 1 Moreover, it is a controversial idea, and like all contested and intricate concepts, simply trying to define the term is difficult. Along with the obvious spatial metaphor of encompassing the whole world, literally globalization, we also need to consider the temporal dimensions of the term. For instance, WC Smith (1981) begins his study of world/global theology by telling a fascinating story of globalization, a particular process that took more than two thousand years work its way around the world. There was certainly a great deal of interaction among cultures prior to the modern world, though admittedly the speed and intensity of the contact has increased dramatically. One of the interesting questions is: does the increase in the velocity and quantity of transmission of everything collated by the idea of globalization really mean a complete change from the past? Is globalization a completely new event in the history of the world? Smith (1981, 7-11) begins and ends his story in India. He starts with a story drawn from pre-Aryan India about a fascinating case of what we would now call globalization—perhaps. Smith commences with an account of the religious transformation of the like of Leo Tolstoi. As Tolstoi wrote in his Confessions, he found one story, a Christian hagiography of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat that changed his life. It is a story of a young prince, Josaphat, who goes into the desert and is converted by a Sinai desert monk, Barlaam—a clear reference, as we will see of a Buddhist bodhisattva tale. The version that Tolstoi read probably came to Russia from Mt. Athos in a Greek recension attributed to John of Damascus or from a older Georgian Christian Georgian tradition.