Paradise
From old Persian (Zeud) pairedaèza an enclosure, a walled-in place; Old Persian pairi, around, dig, to mould, form, shape (hence to form a wall of earth).
Paradise has been sought for or located in many regions of the earth. In Tartary, Armenia, India, and China: on the banks of the Euphrates and of the Ganges; in Mesopotamia, Syria, Persia, Arabia, Palestine, and Ethiopia, and near the mountains of Libanus and Anti-libanus.
Perhaps the most noteworthy tradition is that which fixes its situation in the Island of Ceylon, the Serendib of the ancient Persians, and the Taprobane of the Greek geographers. "It is from the summit of Hamalleel or Adam's Peak," says Percival in his history of Ceylon, "that Adam took his last view of Paradise before he quitted it never to return. The spot on which his feet stood at the moment is still supposed to be found in an impression on the summit of the mountain, resembling the print of a man's foot, but more than double the ordinary size. After taking this farewell view, the father of mankind is said to have gone over to the continent of Judea, which was at that time joined to the island, but no sooner had he passed Adam's Bridge than the sea closed behind him, and cut off all hopes of return. This tradition, from whatever source it was derived, seems to be interwoven with the earliest notions of religion entertained by the Cingalese; and it is difficult to conceive that it could have been engrafted on them without forming an original part. I have frequently had the curiosity to converse with black men of different castes concerning this tradition of Adam. All of them, with every appearance of belief, assured me that it was really true, and in support of it produced a variety of testimonies, old sayings, and prophecies, which have for ages been current among them. The origin of these traditions I do not pretend to trace; but their connection with Scripture history is very evident, and they afford a new instance how universally the opinions with respect to the origin of man coincide." We are further informed by this writer that a large chair fixed in a rock near the summit of the mountain is said to be the workmanship of Adam. "It has the appearance of having been placed there at a very distant period, but who really placed it there, or for what purpose, it is impossible for any European to discover." Paradise is a word of Persian origin, adopted by the Greeks, and literally denotes an inclosure or park planted with fruit-trees, and abounding with various animals. Eden is not termed Paradise in Genesis, but simply a garden planted eastwards in the country or district so called; and it is this apparently indefinite locality which has caused so many conjectures as to its exact site. Some place it in Judea, where is now the sea of Galilee; others in Armenia, near Mount Ararat; and others in Syria, towards the sources of the Orontes, the Chrysorrhoas, and Barrady. Some think that by Eden is meant the whole earth, which was of surprising beauty and fertility before the Fall; and it is curious that a notion prevailed to a great extent among the various nations, that the Old World was under a curse, and that the earth became very barren. We are also assured that the Hindoos and Chinese believe that all nature is contaminated, and that the earth labours undre some dreadful defilement a sentiment which could only result from obscure traditions connected with the first human pair. Josephus gravely says that the Sacred Garden was watered by one river which ran round the whole earth, and was divided into four parts; but he appears to think Paradise was merely a figurative or allegorical locality. Some of the natives of Hindostan have traditions of a place resembling Paradise on the banks of the Ganges; but their accounts are so completely blended with their superstitions, and with their legends respecting the Deluge and the second peopling of the 66 Paradise world, as to be, to a certain extent, unintelligible. A writer who had diligently studied the Indian Puranas for many years, opened a new source of information, and placed Eden on the Imaus Mountains of India. It appears from Scripture," he says, that Adam and Eve lived in the countries to the eastward of Eden; for at the eastern entrance of it God placed the angel with the flaming sword. This is also confirmed by the Puranics, who place the progenitor of mankind on the mountainous regions between Cabul and the Ganges, on the banks of which, in the hills, they show a place where he resorted occasionally for religious purposes. It is frequented by pilgrims. At the entrance of the passes leading to the place where I suppose was the Garden of Eden, and to the eastward of it, the Hindoos have placed a destroying angel, who appears, and it is generally represented like a cherub; I mean Garudha, or the Eagle, upon whom Vishnu and Jupiter are represented riding. Garudha is represented generally like an eagle, but in his compound character somewhat like the cherub. He is represented like a young man, with the countenance, wings, and talons of the eagle. In Scripture the Deity is represented riding upon a cherub, and flying upon the wings of the wind. Garudha is called. Vahan (literally the Vehicle) of Vishnu or Jupiter, and he thus answers to the cherub of Scripture; for many commentators derive this word from the obsolete root c'harab, in the Chaldean language, a word implicitly synonymous with the Sanscrit Vahan." We may here add, that the Puranics considered the north-west part of India, about Cashmere, as the site of Paradise, and the original abode of the first human pair; and that there, at the offering of a sacrifice Daksha was murdered by his jealous brother, who was in consequence doomed to become a fugitive on the earth. In the fabled Meru of the Hindoo mythology, on the other hand, we have also a descriptive representation of the Mosaical Garden of Eden. Meru is a conical mountain, the exact locality of which is not fixed; but as the Hindoo geographers considered the earth as a flat table, and the sacred mountain of Meru rising in the middle, it became at length their decided conviction that Meru was the North Pole, from their notion that the North Pole was the highest part of the world. So firmly we are told, was this tradition believed, that although some Hindoo writers admitted that Mount Meru must be situated in the central part of Asia, yet rather than relinquish their notion of and predilection for the North Pole as the real locality of their Paradise, they actually forced the sun out of the ecliptic, and placed the Pole on the elevated plains of the Lesser Bokhara. If we, however, examine the Hindoo description. of this Paradise, we shall at once be able to trace its origin and its close analogy to the Mosaic account. The summit of Meru is considered as a circular plain of vast extent, surrounded by a belt of hills- a celestial earth, the abode of immortals, and is designated Ida- Vratta, or the Circle of Ida. It is of four different colours towards the cardinal points, and is believed to be supported by four enormous buttresses of gold, silver, copper and iron. Yet doubts exist as to its real appearance, some alleging that its form is that of a square pyramid, others maintain that its shape is conical; others that it resembles an inverted cone; while others thought, that instead of a circular belt of mountains, Meru terminated in. three lofty peaks. The Sawas assert that a vast river rises from the head of their deity Siva, and the Vaishnawas that it springs from beneath the feet of Vishnu, and, after passing through the circle of the moon, falls upon the summit of Meru, and divides itself into four streams, flowing towards the four cardinal points. Others believe that the four rivers of the sacred mountain spring from the roots of Jambri, a tree of immense size which, they say conveys the most extensive and profound knowledge, and accomplishes the most desirable of human aspirations. The reader will recollect the Mosaical account of the Tree of Knowledge, which stood in the middle of the Garden, and of the river which went out of Eden to water it, dividing itself into four branches or streams of other rivers. The river thus rising in Meru, the Hindoos further say, flows in four opposite directions to the four cardinal points and is supposed to issue from four rocks, carved in the shape of so many different animals, one of which is a cow; and this, they allege, is the origin of the Ganges. Some among them, however, think that this river first flows round the sacred city of Brahma, and then discharges itself into a lake called Mansarovara, from which it issues through the rocky heads of four animals to the different divisions of the globe. The cow's head, from which issues the Ganges, they place towards the south; and towards the north is the tiger, or lion's head. The horse's head is on the west, and on the east is that of the elephant.
The traditions of Cashmere represent that country as the original site of Paradise, and the abode of the first human pair; and the Buddhists of Thibet hold opinion respecting the mountain Meru similar to those of the Hindoos. They locate the sacred Garden, however, at the foot of the mountain, near the source of the Ganges; but the four holy rivers are made to issue through the heads of the same animals, which are believed to be the guardians of the divisions of the world. The tree of knowledge, or of life, they designate Zambri, which, they say, is a celestial tree, bearing immortal fruit, and flourishes near four vast rocks, from which issue the several rivers which water the world. The Mussulmans inhabiting the adjacent countries have adopted the popular belief that Paradise was situated in Cashmere, adding that when the first man was driven from it, he and his wife wandered separately for some time. They met at a place called Bahlaka, or Balk, so called because they they mutually embraced each other after a long absence. Two gigantic statues, which they say, are yet to be seen between Bahlaka and Bamiyan, represent Adam and Eve, and a third of smaller dimensions is that of their son Seish or Seth, whose tomb, or its site, is pointed out near Bahlaka.
Some of the writers seriously maintained that Paradise was under the North Pole, arguing upon an idea of the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, that the ecliptic or solar way was originally at right angles to the Equator, and so passed directly over the North Pole. The opinion generally entertained by the Mahomedans that it was in one of the seven heavens, is not more ridiculous than the preceding supposition. Dr. Clarke sums up the extravagant theories respecting the locality of Paradise. Some place it as follows:- In the third heaven, others in the fourth, some within the orbit of the moon, others in the moon itself, some in the middle regions of the air, or beyond the earth's attraction, some on the earth, others under the earth, and others within the earth." 66 Before leaving the East, it may be observed that the Orientals generally reckon four sites of Paradise in Asia : the first Ceylon, already mentioned; the second in Chaldea; the third in a district of Persia, watered by a river called the Nilab; and the fourth about Damascus in Syria, and near the springs of the Jordan. This last supposed site is not peculiar to the Oriental writers, as we find it maintained by some Europeans, especially Heidegger, Le Clerc, and Hardouin. The following are the traditions believed by the inhabitants of the city of Damascus a city which the Emperor Julian the Apostate styled the Eye of all the East, the most sacred and most magnificent Damascus. "I understand," says Lamartine," that Arabian traditions represent this city and its neighbourhood to form Paradise the site of the lost Paradise, and certainly I should think that no place upon earth was better calculated to answer one's ideas of Eden. The vast and fruitful plain, with the seven branches of the blue stream which irrigate it-the majestic framework of the mountains-the glittering lakes which reflect the heaven upon the earth-its geographical situation between the two seas-the perfection of the climate-every thing indicates that Damascus has at least been one of the first towns that were built by the children of men-one of the natural halts of fugitive humanity in primeval times. It is, in fact, one of those sites pointed out by the hand of God for a city-a site predestined to sustain a capital like Constantinople." According to the Orientals, Damascus stands on the site of the Sacred Garden, and without the city is the most beautiful meadow divided by the river Barrady, of the red earth of which Adam is alleged to have been formed. This field is designated Ager Damascenus by the Latins, and nearly in the centre of it a pillar formerly stood, intended to mark the precise spot where the Creator breathed into the first man the breath of life. 66 The numerous traditions which existed among ancient nations of the Garden of Eden doubtless originated those curious and magnificent gardens designed and planted by the Eastern princes, such as the Golden Garden of Aristobulus, King of the Jews, which was consecrated by Pompey to Jupiter Capitolinus. Nor is mythology deficient in similar legends. We have the Gardens of Jupiter, of Alcinous, and of the Fortunate Islands, but especially of the Hesperides, in which not only the primeval Paradise, but traditions of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, and of the original promise made to the woman, are prominently conspicuous. The Garden of the Hesperides produced golden fruit, guarded by a dangerous serpent-that this fierce reptile encircled with its folds a mysterious treeand that Hercules procured the fruit by encountering and killing the serpent. The story of the constellation, as related by Eratosthenes, is applicable to the Garden of Eden, and the primeval history of mankind. This serpent," says that ancient writer, alluding to the constellation, " is the same as that which guarded the golden apples, and was slain by Hercules. For, when the gods offered presents to Juno on her nuptials with Jupiter, the Earth also brought golden apples. Juno, admiring their beauty, commanded them to be planted in the garden of the gods; but finding that they were continually plucked by the daughter of Atlas, she appointed a vast serpent to guard them. Hercules overcame and slew the monster.
Hence, in this constellation the serpent is depicted rearing its head aloft, while Hercules, placed above it with one knee bent, tramples with his foot upon its head, and brandishes a club in his right hand." The Greeks placed the Garden of the Hesperides close to Mount Atlas, and then removed it far into the regions of Western Africa; yet all knowledge of its Asiatic site was not erased from the classical mythologists, for Apollodorus tells us that certain writers situated it not in the Libyan Atlas, but in the Atlas of the Hyperboreans; and he adds, that the serpent had the faculty of uttering articulate sounds.
Our Teutonic ancestors believed that the world was originally a Paradise, and its first inhabitants more than human, whose dwelling was a magnificent hall, glittering with fine gold, where love, and joy, and friendship presided. The most insignificant of their utensils were made of gold, and hence the appellation of the Golden age. But this happiness was soon overthrown by certain women from the country of the giants, to whose seductions the first mortals yielded, and their innocence and integrity were lost for The transgression of Eve is the obvious prototype of the fatal curiosity of Pandora; and the arrival of women ever. from the country of the giants, and their intercourse with a distinct and purer line of mortals, can scarcely fail of bringing forcibly to our recollection the marriages of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain, with were the principal causes of the universal depravity of the Antediluvians. 66 The legends of Hindostan also supply us with accounts of the happiness of Paradise in the Golden Age of the classic mythology. There can arise little doubt," says Maurice, "that by the Satya age, or Age of Perfection, the Brahmins obviously allude to the state of perfection and happiness enjoyed by man in Paradise. It is impossible to explain what the Indian writers assert concerning the universal purity of manners, and the luxurious and unbounded plenty prevailing in that primitive era, without this supposition. Justice, truth, philanthrophy, were then practised among all the orders and classes of mankind. There was then no extortion, no circumvention, no fraud, used in the dealings one with another. Perpetual oblations smoked on the altars of the Deity; every tongue uttered praises, and every heart glowed with gratitude to the Supreme Creator. The gods, in token of their approbation of the conduct of mortals, condescended frequently to become incarnate, and to hold personal intercourse with the yet undepraved race, to instruct them in arts and sciences; to unveil their own sublime functions and pure nature; and to make them acquainted with the economy of those celestial regions into which they were to be immediately translated, when the period of their terrestial probation expired."