Page "Axial Age" Paragraph 7

Jaspers described the Axial Age as " an interregnum between two ages of great empire, a pause for liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness ".

To the extent that the Axial Age represents an in-between period, a period where old certainties had lost their validity and where new ones were still not ready, it has also been suggested that the Axial Age can be considered a historically liminal period. Jaspers was particularly interested in the similarities in circumstance and thought of the Age's figures.

These similarities included an engagement in the quest for human meaning and the rise of a new elite class of religious leaders and thinkers in China, India and the Occident.

The three regions all gave birth to, and then institutionalised, a tradition of travelling scholars, who roamed from city to city to exchange ideas.

These scholars were largely from extant religious traditions ; in China, Confucianism and Taoism ; in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism ; in Persia, the religion of Zoroaster ; in Canaan, Judaism ; and in Greece, sophism and other classical philosophy.