section_path: Global trends/Spread of universal religions
section_name: Spread of universal religions
paragraph_text: Spread of universal religions
  
  Religion that envisaged the possibility that all humans could be included in a universal order had emerged already in the first millennium BCE, particularly with Buddhism. In the following millennium, Buddhism was joined by two other major, universalizing, missionary religions, both developing from Judaism: Christianity and Islam. By the end of the period, these three religions were between them widespread, and often politically dominant, across the Old World.
  
  Outside of Eurasia, religion or otherwise a veneration of the supernatural was also used to reinforce power structures, articulate world views and create foundational myths for society. Mesoamerican cosmological narratives are an example of this.