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Professor Goodyear further contends that the lotus, which he holds, as has been said, to be the keynote of decoration, is identical with the tree of life, or rather that the accepted tree of life is really a variant of the lotus in one form or the other of its many aspects. He objects to the theory that the date palm, the palmetta, or the papyrus is invariably the tree of life, as is held by several writers.¶ The weakness of the theory regarding the soma tree or hom (date-palm) as the tree of life is not only the weakness of the palm theory, which is that no transitional forms between the palmetta and palm can be shown in Assyrian art and that they are not known to have grown there, because it is not to be denied that the sacred tree of Assyria[113] was the palm, but it is a pure hypothesis to suppose that all were soma trees.
The Assyrian tree of life, he holds, was really an artificial form of the lotus, which plant was as well known in Assyria as in India. Sir George Birdwood, who gives a lengthy list of trees held sacred in one part or another of the east, is more or less emphatic as to the hom or soma, which he says is the date-palm, being the tree of life. He allows, however, that on Yarkand rugs the tree of life is represented by a pomegranate tree. As against this, Sayce, in one of the Hibbert lectures, as quoted by Goodyear, says that, ‘the cedar tree is identified with the tree of life,’ and ‘the palm is possibly later.’ The palm, he adds, is undoubtedly a symbol on Assyrian and Chaldean cylinders, as illustrated in Layard’s ‘Culte du Methra,’ but Goodyear does not think that Layard’s text would give much support to the theory of ornamental palm symbolism in Assyria. Count Goblet d’Alviella, in his work on ‘La Migration des Symboles,’ bears out Goodyear and Sayce, and, to some extent, even Birdwood, as to the locality where the tree of life had its origin; but albeit he describes what he holds to be its early representation, he does not attempt to establish a theory as to what was the tree originally typified. The sacred tree, he says, is one of the earliest historic symbols (note he does not call it the tree of life) and had its origin in Mesopotamia; it passed thence to India, where it was used by Buddhists and Brahmans, and thence again to the Phoenicians, and from Asia Minor to Greece. From Persia it was introduced to the Byzantines, and found its way in early Christian times into Christian symbolism in Sicily, Italy, and even in the west of France. ¶ The earliest type, he claims, was a tree of complex and ornate pattern, having on either side of it a monster who faced each the other. These had the forms of winged bulls or of griffins.
Another type, which was that of the semi-human or human priests and kings, followed the same route into China and India and eastern Asia, and being found in the ancient Mexican and Maga codices, is held by Goblet d’Alviella as a part of the evidence which he cites in support of his theory of a pre-Columbian communication between the old world and the new. ¶ As opposed to Sir George Birdwood’s theory that the soma or hom is a date-palm, it may be pointed out that other authorities who are not less entitled to speak on the subject declare the soma of the Vedas[114] and the hom of the Zendavesta[115] to be the Sarcostemma viminale, a leafless asclepiad with white flowers in terminal umbels which appear during the rains in the Dekhan. The flower obtains its name apparently from the fact that it is gathered by moonlight (presumably the full moon), the sanskrit word for the moon being soma. Its conveyance home in carts drawn by rams is accompanied by ceremonials. A fermented liquor is obtained from the flower by mixing its juice, which has been strained through a sieve of goats’ hair, with a preparation of barley and clarified butter or ghee. This beer or wine is used at religious festivals; it may be said that according to Hindu superstition the gods of their system can do nothing without having been previously stimulated with soma. In the second hymn of the Rigveda occurs this passage: ‘Approach, O Wayu; be visible; this Soma juice has been prepared for thee; approach, drink, hear our invocation.’ Many indeed are the allusions made in religious ceremonials to the invigorating power and even intoxicating qualities of the soma, as to which Windischmann suggests that the plant was identical with the gogard tree, which has the quality of ‘enlightening the eyes’ and which he compares with Ampelus, the vine of Bacchus. This same beverage is used at their meals by the Muhammedan Rishis in Kashmir, who abstain from animal food and from marriage. It may be said that Soma, as well as being the name of a tree, to which it may afterwards well have been given, is in the Hindo mythology the name of the son of Rishi Atri by his wife Anasuga (he is also said to be the son of Dharma and Prabhakara). He married the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha (which are the twenty-seven lunar asterisms). He also carried off Tara the wife of Brihaspati, who bore him a son and named him Buddha. This Buddha is regarded as being the parent of the lunar race. Thus are we inevitably brought back to Buddha and Buddhistic emblems and to the long-vanished origins from which those emblems were derived. The lotus, none have disputed, is the oldest known attribute of Buddhist symbolism, but is it not equally certain that the lotus existed in remote ages long antecedent to the dawn of Buddhism? Here then is matter which makes for the support of Professor Goodyear’s ingenious theory. He takes the sepals of the lotus in their natural form, he shows how they have been twisted and exaggerated into spirals and volutes, which, being squared on their passage through the Ionic style of architecture, formed at length what is known as the meander, Greek fret or key pattern, which being doubled produces the svastika. The svastika therefore, which every authority has acknowledged to be the most ancient expression of symbolism, as it is also the earliest form of ornamentation known to the world, should in accordance with this be regarded as identical with the lotus symbol in one of its many phases.
[The previous articles of this series appeared in THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE for March, May, and June.]
THE SORÖ CHALICE
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