In almost all pagan countries some certain flowers, either real or imaginary, receive a sort of veneration from being associated with supernatural and invisible things. Oftentimes the plant so honored is a tree, as the Soma of the Hindoos (the Persian Homa), which was "the first tree planted by Ahura-marda by the fountain of life. He who drinks of its juice can never die." In the Hindoo Mahabharet, the mountain Mandar, the occasional abode of the deities, is covered with a "twining creeper;" and India boasts a vine well befitting to deck the home of the gods! It is the Bengal banisteria of Linnæus, the most gigantic of all climbers. Its blossoms are pale pink shaded with red and yellow—so beautiful and so fragrant that it has gained the native name "delight of the woods." Another mountain, Meroo—a spot "beyond man's comprehension"—is adorned with trees and celestial plants of rare virtue.
The Pelása (Butea frondosa) is held in great veneration; it gave name to the plain Plássey, or more properly Pelássey. It is named in the Vedas, in the laws of Menu, and in Sanscrit poems. Few plants (says Sir W. Jones) are considered more venerable and holy. There was a famous grove of it once at Crishnanagar.
The oriental Nauclea gives an odor like wine from its gold-colored blossoms, hence it was called Halipriga, or beloved of Halin, the Bacchus of India.
The ash-tree is very conspicuous in the fables of the Edda, and, as some part of the Scandinavian creed is said to have been carried thither from Asia, we may speak of it here. In the fifth fable of the prose Edda, the first man was named Aske (ash-tree), and the first woman Emla (elm-tree). We ask, Why these two especial trees? But see further—they were created by the sons of Bore from two pieces of wood found floating in the waves—and, behold, a sensible reason!
An ash-tree is in the palace of the gods; it typifies the universe. Its ramifications are countless—penetrating all things—and under its branches the gods hold council. But this ash-tree in various shapes is almost the only green leaf in Scandinavian mythology. Whatever else Sigge (Odin) carried thither from Asia, he left behind the countless (and some beautiful) flower legends. Or did they die in the icy north—and in their place spring up that machinery of blood and fierce passions which made Valhalla not the flower-clad mountain of oriental climes, but a battle-ground, where life was renewed only to be again pleasurably extinguished, and where boar's meat and mead was joy sufficient?
Flowers seem literally to pervade almost all oriental literature, ancient and modern. They inspire kings to lay aside care and enact the poet. In the middle of the last century, one of the Chinese emperors, Kienlong, distinguished himself by a long poem, in which he painted the beauties of nature and his admiration of them. He was contemporary with Frederick the Great, who also, as his French friend sneeringly informs us, always travelled with a quire of foolscap in his pocket. On which of the monarchs the muses smiled most kindly, no Chinese critic is here to tell. See-ma-kung, a Chinese statesman, wrote a book called the Garden—and very many similar might be named.[54]
What can express the softer emotions of the soul as well as flowers? The oriental lover can find no sweeter name for the object of his passion than "My rosebud!" Her form is the young palm-tree, her brow the white jasmine, her curling locks sweet hyacinths; her grace is the cypress; she is a fawn among aromatic shrubs!
"Roses and lilies are like the bright cheeks of beautiful maidens,
In whose ears the pearls hang like drops of dew!"
Listen to a song from the Schar-Namah of Fedusi, one of the most celebrated Persian poets. In the original, the lines rhyme in couplets; this is only an extract. One can scarce think of the maiden as walking the earth. Surely she must have reclined on some rose, or floated round some lily!