The wager of this Introduction is that imagination serves as a special agent of inter-religious hospitality. It suggests that a spiritual imaginary operating at the level of metaphor, narrative, symbol and epiphany can traverse the closed borders of dogma and ideology and open genuine conversations between wisdom traditions. The editor charts a 'pilgrimage of the heart' from an international meeting in Bangalore in June 2008 through a series of visits to inter-religious ashrams in western India to a final encounter in the Buddhist-Hindu caves of Ajanta and Ellora. Following in the footsteps of such pioneers of Christian-Hindu dialogue as Abhishiktananda, Francis Acharya and Sara Grant, the itinerary mapped in this Introduction seeks to illustrate key features of the five wisdom traditions discussed in this volume. The paradox of immanent transcendence lies at the heart of this journey. The wager of this Introduction is that imagination serves as a special agent of inter-religious hospitality. It suggests that a spiritual imaginary operating at the level of metaphor, narrative, symbol and epiphany can traverse the closed borders of dogma and ideology and open genuine conversations between wisdom traditions. The editor charts a 'pilgrimage of the heart' from an international meeting in Bangalore in June 2008 through a series of visits to inter-religious ashrams in western India to a final encounter in the Buddhist-Hindu caves of Ajanta and Ellora. Following in the footsteps of such pioneers of Christian-Hindu dialogue as Abhishiktananda, Francis Acharya and Sara Grant, the itinerary mapped in this Introduction seeks to illustrate key features of the five wisdom traditions discussed in this volume. The paradox of immanent transcendence lies at the heart of this journey.