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Axial Age (also ''Axis Age'', from German (ドイツ語:Achsenzeit)) is a term coined by German philosopher Karl Jaspers in the sense of a "pivotal age" characterizing the period of ancient history during about the 8th to 3rd centuries BC. During this time, according to Jaspers' concept, new ways of thinking appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world in religion and philosophy, in a striking parallel development without any obvious direct cultural contact between all of the participating cultures of the Old World. The concept was introduced in his book ''Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte'' (''The Origin and Goal of History''〔Karl Jaspers, '' Origin and Goal of History'', Routledge Revivals, 2011, ISBN 978-0415578806〕), published in 1949. Jaspers claimed that the Axial age should be viewed as an objective empirical fact of history, independently of religious considerations.〔Jaspers K.,''The Origin and Goal of History'', p.1〕 He identified a number of key thinkers as having had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared. Jaspers' approach to the culture of the middle of the first millennium BC has been adopted by other scholars and academics, and has become a point of discussion in the history of religion. ==Characteristics of the Axial Age== Jaspers presented his first outline of the Axial age by a series of examples: 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".〔 quoted in .〕 It has also been suggested that the Axial Age was a historically liminal period, when old certainties had lost their validity and new ones were still not ready. Jaspers had a particular interest 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 institutionalized, a tradition of travelling scholars, who roamed from city to city to exchange ideas. After the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, Taoism and Confucianism emerged in China. In other regions, the scholars were largely from extant religious traditions; in India, from Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism; in Persia, from the religion of Zoroaster; in Canaan, from Judaism; and in Greece, from sophism and other classical philosophy. Jaspers argues that these characteristics appeared under similar political circumstances: China, India, and the Occident each comprised multiple small states engaged in internal and external struggles. Jaspers argued that during the Axial Age "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece. And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today."〔.〕 These foundations were laid by individual thinkers within a framework of a changing social environment. Eisenstadt analyses economic circumstances relating to the coming of the Axial Age in Greece.〔 〕 Many of the cultures of the axial age were considered Second-generation societies given the fact that they are built off of the societies that proceeded them. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Axial Age」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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