This book has had the good fortune to encounter some most congenial people along its way: Federica Ragni, who has followed and digitalized every transformation from the manuscript to the printed page; Paolo Rossetti, who has taken care of all typographical matters; Michela Acquati, who has given her expertise during the final stages of the work; Francesca Coppola and Valeria Perrucci, who have given their help in numerous tasks; and Maddalena Buri, the Athenic eye within the text. Roberto Donatoni compensated the author’s linguistic doubts with the abundance of his knowledge and rechecked the quotations from the Sanskrit texts and those translations for which the author is responsible. Finally, Lila Azam Zanganeh went through the English translation, making some valuable remarks. That this book is dedicated to Claudio Rugafiori is just an indication of how much the book itself owes to him. My gratitude to everyone.