EASTEEN GARDENS. 461 



led to the myth of the origin of the cypress in Paradise.* 

 The gardens of the Asiatic terrestrial paradises (7rapaSo-oi) 

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

 and the worship of trees may be traced amongst the Iranians, 

 to the remote date of the prescripts of Horn, 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 r< immortal ten thousand" as its special 



* In the Schdhnameh of Firdusi it is said, " a slender cypress, 

 reared in Paradise, did Zerdusht plant before the gate of the temple 

 of fire" (at Kishmeer in Khorasan). " He had written on this tall cypress, 

 that Gushtasp had adopted the genuine faith, of which the slender 

 tree was a testimony, and thus did God diffuse righteousness. When 

 many years had passed away, the tall cypress spread and became so 

 large that the hunter's cord could not gird its circumference. When 

 its top was surrounded by many branches, he encompassed it with a 



palace of pure gold and caused it to be published abroad, 



Where is there on the earth a cypress like that of Kishmeer] From 

 Paradise God sent it me, and said, Bow thyself from thence to Paradise." 

 When the Caliph Motewekkil caused the cypresses, sacred to the Ma- 

 gians, to be cut down, the age ascribed to this one was said to be 1450 

 years. See Vuller's Fragmente uber die Religion des Zoroaster, 1831, 

 s. 71 und 114; and Ritter, Erdkunde, th. vi. i. s. 242. The original 

 native place of the cypress (in Arabic arar, wood, in Persian serw kohi,) 

 appears to be the mountains of Busih, west of Herat (GeograpMe 

 dEdrisi, trad, par Jaubert, 1836, t. i. p. 464). 



+ A chill. Tat., i. 25; Longus, Past. iv. p. 108; Schafer. " Gesenius, 

 (Thes. Linguae Ilebr., t. ii. p. 1124,) very justly advances the view 

 that the word Paradise belonged originally to the ancient Persian lan- 

 guage, but that its use has been lost in the modern Persian. Firdusi, 

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

 behischt; the ancient Persian origin of the word is, however, expressly 

 corroborated by Pollux, in the Onomast., ix. 3; and by Xenophon 

 ((Econ. 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 (par des, Cant. iv. 13; Nehem. 

 ii. 8 ; and Eccl. ii. 5) ; into the Arabic (firdaus, plur. faradisu, com- 

 pare Alcoran, 23, 11, and Luc., 23, 43); into the Syrian and Arme- 

 nian (paries, see Ciakciak, Dizionario Armeno, 1837, p. 1194; and 

 Schroder, Thes. Ling. Armcn., 1711. prsef. p. 56). The derivation of 

 the Persian word from the Sanscrit (praddsa, or paradesa, 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. 



