Jackson/Philosophy and the End of Sacrifice, 4. “The End of Sacrifice”

Gerald James Larson’s paper discusses five principal questions posed in relation to the topic of the “end of sacrifice” and the emerging concept of “religion” in the Late Antiquity. The first two questions concern the use of the concepts of “religion,” “philosophy” and “theology,” and the apparent absence of their counterparts in the early Indian material. By outlining important notions in Indian thinking, Larson stresses the extent to which the worldviews between Mediterranean Europe and the Indian subcontinent differ. The third question concerns the possible naming of a second axial age that occurred around the first centuries CE in both of these cultural spheres. This could be postulated at least in terms of far-reaching changes taking place within their respective intellectual discourses. The two last points of discussion concern the need for rethinking and rectifying Jaspers’ notion of a first axial age and his notions of “religion,” “philosophy,” and “theology.”