T02 COSMOS. 



The gardens of the Asiatic terrestrial paradises (TTapaSeKTOi) 

 excited the early admiration of the inhabitants of the West ;* 

 and the worship of trees may be traced among the Iranians 

 to the remote date of the prescripts of Hom, named, in the 

 Zend-Avesta, the promulgator of the old law. We learn 

 from Herodotus the delight taken by Xerxes in the great 

 plane-tree in Lydia, on which he bestowed decorations of gold, 

 appointing one of the "immortal ten thousand" as its special 

 guard. t The ancient adoration of trees was connected, owing 

 to the refreshing and humid shadow of the leafy canopy, with 

 the worship of the sacred springs. 



To this consideration of the primitive worship of nature be- 

 longs a notice of the fame attached among the Hellenic races 

 to the remarkably large palm-tree in the island of Delos, and 

 to an ancient palm-tree in Arcadia. The Buddhists of Cey- 

 lon venerate the colossal Indian fig-tree, the Banyan of Anu- 

 rahdepura, which is supposed to have sprung from the branches 

 of the original tree under which Buddha, as the inhabitant 

 of the ancient Magadha, fell into a state of beatitude, sponta- 

 neous extinction, nirivana.X As separate trees became ob- 

 "jects of adoration from the beauty of their forms, so likewise 

 groups of trees were venerated as groves of the gods. Pausa- 

 nias speaks in high terms of admiration of a grove round the 

 Temple of Apollo at Grynion ^olis,§ while the grove of Co- 

 lonus is likewise celebrated in the famous chorus of Sophocles. 



* Achill. Tat, i., 25; Longiis, Past., iv., p. 108; Schafer. " Gese- 

 nius ( Thes. Lingum Hebr., t. ii., p. 1124) very justly advances the view 

 that the vi^ord Paradise belonged originally to the ancient Persian lan- 

 guage, but that its use has been lost in the modern Persian. Fii'dusi, 

 although his own name was taken from it, usually employs only the 

 word behischt; the ancient Persian origin of the word is, hov^rever, ex- 

 pressly corroborated by Pollux, in the Otiomast., ix., 3; and by Xeno- 

 phon {CEcon., 4, 13, and 21; Anab., i., 2, 7, and i., 4, 10; Cyrop., i., 

 4, 5). In its signification of pleasure-garden, or garden, the word has 

 probably passed from the Persian into the Hebrew (pardes, Cant.,iv., 

 13; Nehcm., ii., 8; and Eccl , ii., 5); into the Arabic (Jirdaus, plur. 

 faradisu, compare Alcoran, 23, 11, and Luc, 23, 43); into the Syrian 

 and Armenian {partes, see Ciakciak, Dizionario Armerio, 1837, p. 1194; 

 and Schroder, Thes. Ling. Armen., 1711, Prsef., p. 56). The derivation 

 of the Persian word from the Sanscrit (pradesa, or paradSsa, circuit, or 

 district, or foreign land), which was noticed by Benfey {Griech. Wur- 

 zellexikon, bd. i., 1839, s. 138), and previously by Bohlen and Gesenius, 

 suits perfectly in form, but not so well in sense." — Buschmann. 



t Herod., vii., 31 (between Kallatebus and Sardes). 



t Ritter, Erdkun.de, th. iv., 2, s. 237, 251, und 681 ; Lassen, Indische 

 Alterthumskunde, bd. i., s. 260. 



§ Pausanias, i., 21, 9. Compare, also. Arboretum Sacrum, in Meitrsii 

 Op. ex recevsione Joann. Lami, vol. x., Florent., 1753, p. 777-844. 



