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Universal Religions

The spread of the great religions with universal ambitions that began around 2000 years ago radically transformed the old order inherited from the ancient world. Proposing a new form of transcendence and salvation for all, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam rose as missionary religions that in just a few centuries spread across most of the territories of the civilisations in Eurasia and Africa. The offshoots of older religions like Hinduism and Judaism, these new beliefs encountered others like Confucianism and Taoism in China and animism in Africa during their expansion. One of their primary characteristics is monotheism. The message of a single divinity is proclaimed on the earth by a prophet, the intercessor between god and believers.

The universal religions share common values. Their art was marked during this period by little concern with the realistic representation of figures, its function was to express theological concepts rather than depict the real world. The importance of scriptures is also found in all the three faiths. As recognised by the Quranic formula Ahl al-Kitāb (People of the Book), Islam and Christianity draw from the same branch of the Jewish Old Testament. In this they take up the tradition of the Buddhist sutras, transcriptions of the Buddha’s words.