I actually first encountered the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as part of an 'Asian Social Studies' course in junior high school in NSW. As I (dimly) recall, the context was to assist in understanding Balinese Wayang puppet theatre.

It's not just those societies with a Christian heritage that incorporate religiously based themes and idioms in their literary culture. I'm pleased to say that I learned that at an Australian State high school way back in the 1960s!

ambishus, Foxy; very ambitious. I'd be happy if we could just get kids to spell.
Was it ABC online, or another recently, which wrote of a 'bellweather'?
That professional journalists should be illiterate is truly a sign of the times. I'm sick up and fed of people 'loosing' things, and does the sentence "...are a (ten thousand) times more impressive..." ring true? A couple more zeroes and maybe some commas would have helped that sentence, to my mind.
As for aphorisms, better to consult the farming community, to my mind. Indeed, farmers supplied many of the best in the bible, for that matter.
As ye sow, so shall ye reap...

Suzonline

very fair post of yours. The difference between the stories or wisdom of confucious and Jesus is that (if you look close enough) Jesus knew his destiny was the cross, and why it had to be. Also, his mission included miracle and sign. Such that a blind man, (blind from birth) could say to the Pharisees interrogating him "Whether this man is a sinner I don't know..but one thing I know. I was blind, and now I see"
(John 9 territory)

Look at any major 'religious figure'

Buddah
Mohammad
Confucious
Zoroaster
Sikh Gurus
Baha Ullah (Bahai)

and in no case was any substantial sequence (important word)of miracles or signs attributed to them.

No..this is not a 'my religion is better than yours' thing..it's pure fact. (some might say only the reports are)

This is what caused Christianity to take such deep root during times of persecution. It was a message of a man who came to die (and rise).. and the Christian understanding of that death is 'for our sins'....

The resurrection is the pivotal point in history. Christianity would have died if they could have produced a corpse of Christ.

-They couldn't
-It didn't
-and hence we speak now :)

Can we examine Christian documents as 'literature' and do them justice without taking this side into account?

King Hazza,
Could you enlighten us on the literary DOCUMENTS [for attention] from Egypt and China that are more than 5,000 years old and indicate their difference from current wisdom taught by Jewish and Christian traditions. Tell us how they add to Western culture. Remember Moses was trained in Egypt as a State leader and his culture is attributed to his faith in YHWH.

Thanks again for further excellent posts
and for broadening the field to include
all cultures in this discussion.

Bruno Bettelheim in his book, "The Uses of
Enchantment..." tells us that , "The very
spate of re-issues of traditional stories
attest a faith not only in the literary
heritage...but in the wisdom, insight...
magic and wonder which is the life-blood
of that literature and of those far-off,
forgotten folk from whom it had its being."

We've got in prose, the proverb, fable, parable...
We've got Literal folk sayings; "An Apple a Day
Keeps the Doctor Away; metaphorical advice:
"Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Are
Hatched; prediction or warning: Hasten Slowly;
and homely philosophical observations; Birds
of a Feather Flock Together; All That Glitters
is Not Gold. All these linger as a mental
shorthand and conversational tags.

Parables have been described as , "An earthly
story with a heavenly meaning." The Good Samaritan
as told in Luke 10 is one of the most economical
yet highly-charged narratives in literature.
And of course the parables of Jesus will always be
relevant for their literary as well as their spiritual
inspiration.

Many brief folk stories are somewhere between fables and
parables. For example,
Persian tales, as Arthur Scholey
tells us in, "The Discontented Dervishes and Other
Persian Tales," contain snippets of inherent wisdom
and understanding:

The Good Deed
A village chief saw a man take a thorn
out of the foot of an orphan.
That night he dreamed of the man,
sauntering with pleasure in the garden
of Paradise and saying: "Look how many roses
blossomed from that thorn!"

“If Not Higher” by Peretz

“Early every Friday morning, at the time of the Penitential Prayers, the rabbi of Nemirov would vanish. The members of the congregation wondered where he could be, but they assumed he was absent for some worthwhile purpose. However, a Litvak (Lithuanian Jew) was not satisfied and schemed to find out where the rabbi went.”

Peretz describes the Litvak:

"You know the Litvaks. They think little of the holy books (the books of the Bible are the five books of Moses, Prophets and Writings) but stuff themselves with Talmud and the law (The Talmud is the commentary on the Bible. Litvaks should know the Bible so well that in all but elementary religious studies with the commentaries and the minutiae of the law detailed in such documents as the Shulchan Aruch.). “So this Litvak points to a passage in the Gemara – it sticks in your eyes – where it is written that even Moses our Teacher did not ascend to heaven in his lifetime but remained suspended two and a half feet below. Go argue with a Litvak”.

The Litvak stole into the rabbi’s house and hid under the bed. When the rabbi arose the Litvak followed him and watched as the rabbi cut down a small tree in a nearby wood. The rabbi took the wood and went to a shack of a poor woman. Playing the part of a Russian peasant the rabbi offered to sell the woman the wood. Since the woman had no money he said he would trust her for it and started a fire. While he was making the fire the rabbi recited the Penitential Prayers

The last two paragraphs of the story:

"The Litvak who saw all this became a disciple of the rabbi.

And ever after, when another disciple tells how the rabbi of Nemirov ascends to heaven at the time of the Penitential Prayers, the Litvak does not laugh. He only adds quietly, “If not higher.”

Not attending the prayers and lying about his identity were wrong but holy purpose made it right.