The Encyclopedia of World Religions

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of the earlier U PANISHADS , who all asked the same questions in their own ways. What brought about this new kind of think ing? One factor was the prior invention of writ ing, which meant that historical records could be kept and studied and the teachings of the wise recorded. Another was the emergence of ancient empires like the Greek, Roman, and Chinese, which embraced different cultures and meant, for some, increased opportunity for travel and reflec tion. It all amounted to a time when a new aware ness of change and diversity in human life was in the air, and there was yearning for new ways of looking at life. How did the founders respond to this yearn ing? For one thing, they did not completely con demn the prior religion but built on it. His follow ers heard the founder saying, in effect, “Here is a new way of looking at what you already know,” or “Here in my life and teaching is a model that sums up what went before and adds something signifi cant to it.” In his teachings, Jesus began with the prior spiritual teachings of Judaism, as he empha sized. Muhammad did not deny the holy city of Mecca; he instead gave it a new meaning. Moreover, the founders gave the new outlook a central symbol: themselves. Their religion—draw ing on the invention of writing—was inevitably centered on a sacred canon of scripture, usually based on their own teaching. More than the earlier religions, their faiths taught a definite process of salvation. Specific things were to be believed and done in response to the question, “What must I do to be saved, enlightened, or moral?” In this way, they offered a definite model of human life, show ing what it is now and what it can be at its best. By these means the founders changed the inner lives of millions and, through them and the religious institutions that followed in their wake, the course of history. Further reading: Robert Ellwood, Cycles of Faith (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira, 2003); Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953); Barbara McFarlane, Sacred Myths: Stories of World Religions (Portland, Ore.:

the tremendous importance their name and story have had for the hundreds of millions of people over many centuries for whom they have embod ied the supreme human ideal and to whom they have been the central conveyors of the divine, or the divine word, to humanity.) First we may note that all of these men lived during a relatively short period in terms of human history as a whole: from about 2000 B . C . E . (Abra ham) to 632 C . E . (death of Muhammad). The Bud dha, the Chinese founders, Jesus, and Muhammad all lived within only a little more than a millen nium, 560 B . C . E . (birth of the Buddha) to 632 C . E . (There have been other founders of smaller reli gions, some later, but none have had the world historical importance of these.) This was a period of tremendous change for religion. In it, the foundation was laid for the replacement or absorption of archaic religion, based on traditional myths, RITUALS , and local gods, by religions based on the life and teaching of a founder who lived as a human being in historical time. This meant that the focus of the new reli gions was not the animal or plant of hunting and agricultural religion or the tribal loyalty or loyalty to a sacred king as in ancient Egypt or Babylon, but in a real sense was an individual human being. By example and teaching, the founders asked in a new and direct way, “What must I, as an individ ual, do to be saved or enlightened, or accounted a moral being?” and “What is the meaning behind the often-terrible events of human history to me as an individual and to humanity as whole?” (The latter question lies behind, for example, the Confu cian keeping of historical records from which mor als were drawn and the Jewish, and later Christian, emphasis on the histories in the Hebrew scriptures and the believers’ attempts to understand how God’s plan was working through them.) The central core of this period, around the fifth century B . C . E ., was called the Axial Age, or time of turning, by the philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883– 1969). It was indeed a time of epochal change in human thinking, the time not only of some of the founders but also of the greatest Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, and Hindu sages like those