Axial Age Religions from the Viewpoint of Shmuel Eisenstadt

In this paper, the views of Shmuel Eisenstadt about the emergence of transcendental visions in the religions of axial age are analyzed in a descriptive-analytic method. Eisenstadt considers the most important religious transformation of the axial age to be the emergence of transcendental visions in Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In his analysis, transcendental visions distinguished between two realms of transcendental order (refined) and mundane order (polluted), and all attempts for the resolution of the tension between transcendental order and mundane order led to the institutionalization of some different orientations in axial age religions: this-worldly orientation (proper performance of worldly duties) in Confucianism; other-worldly orientation (act of renunciation) in Hinduism and Buddhism; and combination of this and other-worldly orientations (legal rules, cultic orientation, ritual prescriptions and ethical injunctions) in Judaism. In Eisenstadt's viewpoint, the institutionalization of these orientations led to the reconstruction of mundane order in some aspects: Appearance of secular rulers who were partially responsive to the transcendental order; and the separation of collective identity based on sacredness from the other types of collective identities based on civility and primordiality.