Robert N. Bellah, in his book From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, states that: “Our cultural world and the great traditions that still in so many ways define us, all originate in the axial age.”[i] When Karl Jaspers used the term “axial age” he meant the 500 years that preceded the birth of Jesus Christ when four great religious civilizations flourished. They were ancient Israel, classical Greece, Taoist and Confucian China and Buddhist India. Their remarkable simultaneity is what has captured human attention.
Will Durant thinks that Zoroastrianism in Persia should probably be included as one of the great religions of the axial age. “It has often been remarked that this period was distinguished by a shower of stars in the history of genius: Mahavira and Buddha [563-483 BCE] in India, Lae-tze [604-517 BCE?] and Confucius [551-478 BCE] in China, Jeremiah and the Second Isaiah in Judea, the pre-Socratic philosophers in Greece and perhaps Zarathustra in Persia.”[ii] Zoroaster (Zarathustra), a prophet of the 6th century BCE, certainly ranks among the great sages of the axial age.
[i] Wolfe, Alan. “Origins of Belief.” The New York Times Book Review. October 2, 2011, p. 23.
[ii] Durant, Will. Our Oriental Heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954, p. 422.
