Axial Age Essay

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Axial Age German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term the axial age or axial period (Ger. Achsenzeit, "axis time") to describe the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which, according to Jaspers, similar revolutionary thinking appeared in India, China and the Occident. The period is also sometimes referred to as the axis age. From his point of view the axial age indicates that during central intervals of time in the history of human thought there have been major advances in the world's political, philosophical, and religious systems. These major changes dominated thinking in the following centuries and millennia. The sixth century BCE was the period of radical changes in basic religious concepts and the sudden emergence of new ideas. A radical change in humanity’s spiritual development occurred which became a major source of most of our present-day faith traditions. The rapid transformation cannot be satisfactorily explained by any acceptable theory of causation. Most of the new doctrines, which concerned a worldview and values, eventually became organized as religious systems. While many of mankind’s traditional rituals and beliefs have been incorporated into these new religions, I think it was very much a fresh beginning. In the years centering around 500 BCE, great advances in religion, philosophy, science, democracy, and many forms of art - occurred independently and almost simultaneously in China, India, the Middle East, and Greece. Spiritual foundations were laid which humanity still use today. In these times of social upheaval and political turmoil, new elite became the carrier of a new cultural and social order. Great religious leaders rose to prominence attracting a mass following, and many sociological, cultural, economic and spiritual changes were made: |In China, many individual thinkers, such as Confucius, Lao-Tse, and Mo Tzu, began to reflect
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