THE UNIVERSE-TREE
One of the most interesting points in connection with tree myths is the
wide distribution of the conception of the cosmogonic or world-tree, of
which the Scandinavian Yggdrasil is the most familiar example. The idea
is met with amongst the ancient Chaldaeans, the Egyptians, the Persians,
the Hindus, and the Aryan races of Northern Europe, as well as in the
mythology of China and Japan; and this community of tradition has been
regarded by some authorities as pointing to a prehistoric intercourse
between these widely-separated races, if not to their common
origin.[257] But, apart from the fact that the same conception is also
found in a rudimentary form amongst the aborigines of New Zealand and
America, it is not difficult to imagine that it may have occurred
separately to more than one inquirer. In short, “the idea of referring
to the form of a tree the apparent conformation of the universe is one
of the most natural methods of reasoning which can occur to the savage
mind.”[258] The moment he began to concern himself with such questions,
the primitive thinker must have asked himself why the heavenly
firmament, with its sun and stars and the waters above it, did not fall
to earth like everything else within his knowledge. His mind naturally
demanded some prop or support to antagonise what in his experience was
the unrestricted despotism of geocentric gravitation. The Egyptian
explained the problem by representing the sky as the star-spangled body
of the goddess Nu̔ît, who had been separated from her husband Sibû, the
earth, by the efforts of Shû. In the mythology of the Maoris, Rangi, the
sky, was forcibly separated from his wife, the universal mother, earth,
by one of their children, Tane Mahuta, father of forests, who planting
his head upon the earth, upheld the heavens with his feet.[259]
The fact that the celestial bodies were observed to revolve around a
fixed point rendered it a necessity that this assumed support of the
heaven should be of the nature of a central axis, upholding the sky-roof
as the pole upholds a tent. To the inhabitants of mountainous countries,
who saw the clouds resting upon the peaks, the idea of a
heaven-supporting mountain no doubt presented itself as the most
reasonable solution. Thus Aristotle, to quote Lord Bacon, “elegantly
expoundeth the ancient fable of Atlas (that stood fixed and bare up the
heaven from falling) to be meant of the poles or axle-tree of heaven.”
To plain-dwellers, however, the tree was the loftiest object within
their experience, and it may be conjectured that the idea of a central
world-supporting tree was a product of the lowlands. In some cases the
two conceptions were combined and the world-tree was placed on the
summit of a world-mountain. It is interesting, however, to note that the
earliest known version of a world-tree, pure and simple, comes to us
from the fertile alluvial plain on the borders of the Persian Gulf. The
account, contained in an old bilingual hymn, and probably of Accadian
origin, represents the tree as growing in the garden of Edin or Eden,
placed by Babylonian tradition in the immediate vicinity of Eridu, a
city which flourished at the mouth of the Euphrates between 3000 and
4000 B.C.
In Eridu a stalk grew overshadowing; in a holy place did it become
green;
Its roots were of white crystal, which stretched towards the deep.
(Before) Ea was its course in Eridu, teeming with fertility;
Its seat was the (central place of the earth);
Its foliage (?) was the couch of Zikum the (primaeval) mother.
Into the heart of its holy house, which spread its shade like a
forest, hath no man entered.
(There is the home) of the mighty mother who passes across the sky.
In the midst of it was Tammuz.
There is the shrine of the two (gods).[260]
Of this glorified tree or stem it is to be observed that it grew at the
centre of the earth; that its roots pierced down into the abysmal watery
deep, where the amphibious Ea, the god of wisdom, had his seat, and
whence he nourished the earth with springs and streams; that its foliage
supported Zikum, the primordial heavens, and overshadowed the earth,
which was apparently regarded as a plane placed midway between the
firmament above and the deep below. The stem itself was the home of
Davkina, consort of Ea, the great mother, “the lady of the Earth,” and
of her son Tammuz, a temple too sacred for mortals to enter.
Even were it not to be inferred from other evidence, there could be
little doubt that the people amongst whom the above conception arose
must have been already familiar with tree-worship. The mighty stem, in
which the great gods dwelt, was but a poetical amplification of the
sacred, spirit-inhabited tree, and arose out of the same idealising
process as that which gave birth to the nearly related tree of knowledge
and tree of life.
Side by side with that of a world-tree the conception of a
world-mountain is also met with in the primitive cosmogony of the
Chaldaeans, but while the former tradition belonged to Sumir or Southern
Babylonia, the latter seems to have prevailed in the Northern Accad,
whose inhabitants had once been mountain-dwellers.[261] This “mountain
of the world,” “whose head rivalled the heaven,” which had the pure deep
for its foundation and was the home of the gods, was placed in the
north, and its worship survived in that of the “illustrious mounds” of
the Babylonian plain, which were equally regarded as the visible
habitation of divine spirits. Isaiah represents the king of Babylon as
boasting, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the
uttermost parts of the north.”[262] It seems clear that the prophet is
alluding to the myth of a Chaldaean Olympus, where the gods held their
assemblies. In one of the Babylonian hymns this mountain is addressed
as, “O thou who givest shade, Lord who castest thy shadow over the land,
great mount,”[263] from which it might appear that the idea of the
world-mountain was not very strictly dissociated from that of a
world-tree.
In the corresponding cosmogony, which was current five thousand years
later amongst the Scandinavians, the two conceptions were unequivocally
combined. The Norse Yggdrasil, in spite of the many quaint symbolical
fancies which have been embroidered on to the main conception,
represents such a remarkable amalgamation of ideas originally Oriental
that it is difficult to believe that it can have had a totally
independent origin. The world-mountain, the world-tree with the birds in
its branches, and the connection of the latter with another peculiarly
Eastern idea, that of the food of the gods, are all reproduced in the
cosmogonic traditions of the Eddas, and it is highly probable that they
formed part of a primitive folk-lore common to the different races. As
their culture grew the Chaldaeans gave up their earlier conception, and
came to regard the earth as a gigantic bowl floating bottom upwards upon
the deep, but to the Norse poet the world still remained a flat disc
surrounded by a river ocean, and limited by mountain ranges. In its
centre Asgard, the mountain of the gods, was pierced by a mighty tree
trunk, the branches of which overshadowed the world and supported the
sky, the stars, and the clouds, whilst its roots stretched downwards
into the primordial abyss. The apples stored in Valhal, by eating which
the gods preserved their youth, closely correspond to the amrita or soma
which, as we shall see, was a peculiar feature of the Eastern conception
of the world-tree.
“The chief and most holy seat of the gods,” say the Eddas, “is by the
ash Yggdrasil. There the gods meet in council every day. It is the
greatest and best of all trees, its branches spread over all the world
and reach above heaven. Three roots sustain the tree and stand wide
apart: one is with the Asa; the second with the Frost-giants; the third
reaches into Niflheim, and under it is Hvergelmer, where Nidhug gnaws
the root from below. But under the second root, which extends to the
Frost-giants, is the well of Mimer, wherein knowledge and wisdom are
concealed. The third root of the ash is in heaven, and beneath it is the
most sacred fountain of Urd. Here the gods have their doomstead. The Asa
ride thither every day over Bifrost, which is also called Asa-bridge.
There stands a beautiful hall near the fountain beneath the ash. Out of
it come three maids. These maids shape the lives of men and we call them
the Norns. On the boughs of the ash sits an eagle, who knows many
things. Between his eyes sits the hawk, called Vedfolner. A squirrel, by
name Ratatösk, springs up and down the tree and bears words of hate
between the eagle and Nidhug. Four stags leap about in the branches of
the ash and bite the buds. The Norns that dwell by the fountain of Urd
every day take water from the fountain, and clay that lies around the
fountain, and sprinkle therewith the ash, in order that its branches may
not wither or decay.... In Valhal there is a chest, kept by Ithun, in
which are the apples that the gods must bite when they grow old, in
order to become young again.”[264]
In the above description the various denizens of the tree have been
supposed to symbolise natural phenomena. The stags who bite the buds are
the four cardinal winds; the eagle and the hawk represent respectively
the air and the wind-still ether; the serpent Nidhug who gnaws the root
in the subterranean abyss symbolises volcanic forces, and the squirrel,
who runs up and down the tree, hail and other atmospheric phenomena.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.—Yggdrasil—the Scandinavian world-tree.(From Finn
Magnusen’s Eddalaeren.)]
A similar if somewhat less detailed symbolism is met with in both the
Indian and Persian traditions of the world-tree, a symbolism which often
obscures and overshadows its cosmic function. In both countries the
mythical tree was venerated rather as a tree of life, the source of the
immortalising soma or haoma, than as the supporter of the universe. The
latter function was not indeed quite lost sight of, for the Kalpadruma
of the Vedas was a cloud-tree of colossal size, which grew on a steep
mountain, and by its shadow produced day and night before the creation
of the sun and moon; and in the Rig-Veda Brahma himself is described as
the vast over-spreading tree of the universe, of which the gods are the
branches. Similarly in Persian legend, near the haoma-tree stood the
tree of all seeds, frequented by two birds, one of which when he settled
on it broke off a thousand branches and caused their seeds to fall,
while the other carried them to a place whence they might be conveyed to
the earth with the rain. The same idea, even to the two birds, recurs in
the Indian traditions of the mystical soma-tree, which, besides
producing the immortalising drink, also bore fruit and seed of every
kind. It was from this tree that the immortals shaped the heaven and the
earth: it grew in the third heaven, overshadowing it with its branches.
Beneath it sat the gods, quaffing the precious soma, whereby they
preserved their immortality.
Amongst the followers of Buddha this tradition of a supernatural tree
underwent a further process of idealisation. Their fancy described it as
covered with divine flowers, and gleaming with every kind of precious
stone. To its smallest leaf it was formed of gems. It grew on a pure and
level sward, resplendent in colour as the peacock’s neck. It received
the homage of the gods.[265] It was beneath this tree that Gautama took
his seat, resolved not to stir until he had attained to perfect
knowledge. The tempter Mâra, with his hosts of demons, assailed him with
fiery darts, with rain in floods and hurricanes; but the Buddha remained
unmoved, until the defeated demons fled away. This is probably a
Buddhist rendering of the Vedic account of the great fight between the
powers of light and darkness for the clouds and the ambrosia they
contained. Gautama also wins the victory, but for him it is knowledge
and enlightenment that should constitute the true object of human
desire.
Briefer references to the cosmic tree are met with in the traditions of
other races. According to the Phoenicians the universe was framed on the
model of a tent, its axis a revolving cosmic tree, supporting a blue
canopy on which the heavenly bodies were embroidered. The Egyptians, in
one of their schemes of the universe, also represented the central axis
as a colossal tree, on whose branches Bennu the sun god perched. It gave
forth celestial rain, which descended on the fields of Lower Egypt, and
penetrated to the under-world to refresh those who are in Amenti. The
Osirian Tât-pillar, alluded to in a previous chapter, is thought by
Professor Tiele to be derived from the conception of the world-pillar,
though M. Maspero regards its cosmic symbolism as a later accretion.
“On a post on which is graven a human countenance, and which is covered
with gay clothing, stands the so-called Tât-pillar, entirely made up of
superimposed capitals, one of which has a rude face scratched upon it,
intended no doubt to represent the shining sun. On the top of the pillar
is placed the complete head-dress of Osiris, the ram’s horns, the sun,
the ureus adder, the double feather, all emblems of light and
sovereignty, which in my judgment must have been intended to represent
the highest heaven.”[266]
The conception of the world-tree is also found in the golden gem-bearing
tree of the sky, where, according to Egyptian mythology, Nu̔ît had her
abode. “She is goddess of the heavenly ocean, whose body is decked with
stars. The pilgrim to the lower world eats of the fruit, and the goddess
leaning from the tree pours out the water of life.” This was in the west
on the way travelled by the dead. To the east there was another tree,
with wide radiating branches bearing jewels, up which the strong morning
sun, Horus, climbed to the zenith of heaven. It has been suggested that
this “Sycamore of Emerald” was a mythological rendering of the beautiful
green tints on the horizon at the rising and setting of the sun.[267]
The tradition of a universe-tree is found also in China and Japan. The
legends of the latter country speak of an enormous metal pine which
grows in the north at the centre of the world.[268] In Chinese mythology
seven miraculous trees once flourished on the Kuen Lün Mountains. One of
them, which was of jade, bore fruit that conferred immortality; another,
named Tong, grew on the highest peak, “hard by the closed gate of
heaven.”[269]
It is interesting to find somewhat similar traditions current in the New
World. According to the cosmogony of the Sia Indians—a small diminished
tribe inhabiting New Mexico—there was in each of the six regions of the
world, North, South, East, West, Zenith, and Nadir, a mountain bearing a
giant tree, in a spring at the foot of which dwelt one of the six “cloud
rulers,” each attended by one of the six primal Sia priestesses, chosen
by the arch-mother to intercede with the cloud rulers to send rain to
the Sia. The six trees were specified as the spruce, pine, aspen, cedar,
and two varieties of the oak.[270]
The beautiful conception met with in some of the above traditions, by
which the stars were compared at once to gems and to the fruits of a
mighty tree, is frequently encountered in ancient literature. The
Arabians represented the zodiac as a tree with twelve branches, of which
the stars were the fruit, and a somewhat similar idea appears in the
Apocalyptic tree of life, which “bare twelve manner of fruits, and
yielded her fruit every month.”[271] The Babylonian hero Gilgames, in
his wanderings beyond the gates of ocean, came upon a forest, which
To the forest of the trees of the gods in appearance was equal;
Emeralds it carried as its fruit;
The branch refuses not to support a canopy;
Crystal they carried as shoots,
Fruit they carry and to the sight it is glistening.[272]
The device of a golden tree hung with jewels, which is common throughout
the East in all fine goldsmiths’ work, and a good example of which was
formerly one of the treasures of the palace of the Great Mogul at
Agra,[273] was no doubt derived from the conception of a star-bearing
world-tree. For it must be remembered that the ancients believed gems to
be self-lustrous like the stars. Homer’s palaces emitted a radiance like
moonlight, and the columns of gold and emerald seen by Herodotus at Tyre
gave out light.[274]
We have no direct instance of gem-bearing trees in Greek mythology,
though the golden apples of the Hesperides growing on Mount Atlas, the
sky-sustaining mountain in the country beyond the north wind, had
evidently some kinship to the jewelled fruit of Eastern legend.
In addition to the Norse Yggdrasil, there are other traces of the
tradition of a world-tree to be met with amongst European nations. The
Russians have a legend, derived from Byzantium, of an iron-tree, the
root of which is the power of God, while its head sustains the three
worlds, the heavenly ocean of air, the earth, and hell with its burning
fire and brimstone.[275] Amongst the Saxons the idea of a world-tree
seems to have persisted even to the time of Charlemagne, who in the
course of his campaign against them in 772 A.D. solemnly destroyed as a
heathen idol their Irmensûl or “World-pillar,” a lofty tree-trunk, which
they worshipped as typifying the universal column that supports all
things. Mannhardt, however, regards the Irmensûl as simply a national
tree, corresponding to the community trees already mentioned, and
explains Charlemagne’s act as a political rather than a religious
one.[276]
In the Cathedral at Hildesheim there is an ancient stone column known as
the Irmensäule (though its claim to the name is disputed), which was dug
up under Louis le Débonnaire, and transformed into a candelabrum
surmounted by an image of the Virgin,[277] the conception of moral
support thus taking the place of the grosser idea of a material stay.
As in Eastern legend the universe-tree was venerated as something more
than a mere material supporter of the world, being sometimes the giver
of wisdom and sometimes the conveyer of immortality, so in European myth
it is found linked with a similar beneficence. In the legends of the
Finns its branches are represented as conferring “eternal welfare,” and
“the delight that never ceases.” The Kalevala, which dates back to an
unknown antiquity, relates how the last of created trees, the oak,
sprang from the magic acorn planted by the hero Wainamoinen in the ashes
of burnt hay which had been mown by the water-maidens:—
Spreads the oak-tree many branches,
Rounds itself a broad corona,
Raises it above the storm clouds;
Far it stretches out its branches,
Stops the white clouds in their courses,
With its branches hides the sunlight,
With its many leaves the moonbeams,
And the starlight dies in heaven.
Sad the lives of man and hero,
Sad the house of ocean-dwellers,
If the sun shines not upon them,
If the moonlight does not cheer them.
At the prayer of Wainamoinen, appalled by the monstrous growth, his
mother, the wind-spirit, sends a tiny water-creature, who, soon turning
into a giant, with a mighty swing of his hatchet strikes the tree. With
the second stroke he cuts it, and with the third fire springs from its
huge bulk and the oak yields, “shaking earth and heaven in falling.” It
is not till then that its beneficent powers are made manifest:—
Eastward far the trunk extending,
Far to westward flew the tree-tops,
To the south the leaves were scattered,
To the north its hundred branches.
Whosoe’er a branch has taken
Has obtained eternal welfare.
Who receives himself a tree top
He has gained the master-magic.
Who the foliage has gathered
Has delight that never ceases.[278]
The corresponding legend amongst the neighbouring Esthonians, as told in
their epic, the Kalevipoeg, contains a quaint medley of the practical
and the poetic. Here, too, the monstrous oak is felled by a giant who
grows from a dwarf; in falling it covers the sea with its branches and
is quickly turned to use by the people. From the trunk is fashioned a
bridge with two arms, one stretching to Finland, the other to an
adjoining island. Ships are built from the crown, and towns from the
roots, and toy-boats from the chips. What is left over is used to build
shelters for old men, widows, and orphans, and the last remainder to
provide a hut for the minstrel. Therewith he gains “the master-magic,”
for the strangers who cross the bridge now and again, and stop at his
door to ask what city and what splendid palace stand before them,
receive for answer that the palace is his poor hut, and all the
splendour around is the light of his songs reflected from heaven.[279]
To return again to the East, it has already been mentioned that in a
tradition common both to the Persians and the Hindus, and therefore
presumably of considerable antiquity, the cosmic tree produced the food
whereby the gods preserved their immortality. The universe-tree had
become a tree of life. This conception of a mystical life-giving tree
was associated with the ritual use of an earthly counterpart of the
immortalising drink.
According to the Persian tradition the haoma-tree grew beside the tree
of all seeds in a lake, where it was guarded by two fish against the
attacks of the lizard sent by Ahriman to destroy the sacred sap
wherewith the gods were nourished. It was the first of all trees planted
by Ormuzd in the fountain of life, and was identified with the god
Haoma, who gave strength and health to the body, and to the soul
enlightenment and eternal life. This god was regarded as assimilated to
the earthly haoma, and as present in it. It is related in the sacred
writings that he appeared one day to Zoroaster as he was tending the
holy fire, and thus addressed him: “I am the divine Haoma, who keeps
death at bay. Call upon me, express my juice that ye may enjoy me;
worship me with songs of praise.” Zoroaster replied, “Honour to Haoma.
He is good, well, and truly born, the giver of welfare and health,
victorious and of golden hue; his branches bow down that one may enjoy
them. To the soul he is the way to heaven. In the beginning Ormuzd gave
to Haoma the girdle glittering with stars, wherewith he girded himself
upon the tops of the mountains.”[280]
The juice of the terrestrial haoma was obtained from the plant by the
use of pestle and mortar, and was taken whenever prayer was offered.
Every house in Persia had its haoma-plant and its sacred pestle and
mortar, which had to be protected from pollution as carefully as the
holy fire and the sacred myrtle-twigs. The preparation of the
haoma-drink had its special liturgy, and in dedicating it the cup was
held aloft, not placed on the ground, lest it should be polluted by the
breath of the worshipper or other impurity.[281] The Semnion or
Theombrotion which, according to Pliny, was taken by the Persian kings
to keep off bodily decay and to produce constancy of mind, was probably
identical with the haoma-drink.[282]
The Parsees of Bombay still continue the ritual use of the haoma-juice,
deriving it from a plant with a knotted stem and leaves like those of
the jasmine, supplies of which are specially obtained from Kirman in
Persia. They refuse to admit the identity of the Vedic soma with their
own sacred plant, which they assert is never found in India.[283]
This fact, if true, would account for the confusion which appears to
exist as to the exact nature of the plant from which the Vedic soma or
amrita was derived, and indeed it is very probable that in their
migrations southward the Hindus made use successively of different
plants. But there can be little doubt that the soma ritual and the
conceptions associated with it were originally derived from the same
source as that of the haoma, and date back to a period before the Aryan
races had become separated. Like the haoma, the soma is not only a plant
but also a powerful deity, and in both the Vedas and the Zendavesta “the
conceptions of the god and the sacred juice blend wonderfully with each
other.”[284]
According to Professor Roth, the plant which is the source of the
intoxicating drink offered to the gods in Hindu sacrifices is the
_Sarcostemma acidum_ or _Asclepias acida_, a leafless herb containing a
milky juice, but it is doubtful whether it is identical with the Vedic
soma plant.[285] Dr. Haug states distinctly that the plant at present
used by the sacrificial priests of the Deccan is not the soma of the
Vedas. It grows on the hills near Poona; its sap, which is whitish, is
bitter and astringent, but not sour; it is a very nasty drink, but has
some intoxicating effect. De Gubernatis concludes that as the earthly
drink was merely a symbol of the heavenly soma, its source and character
were not material. It is not necessary that the drink which the
worshipper pretends to drink or to offer to Indra at the sacrifice
should be really intoxicating. The object of the rite is to induce Indra
in heaven to drink the water of strength, the true soma, the real
ambrosia, sometimes conceived as hidden in the clouds, sometimes as
dwelling in the soft light poured forth by the great Soma, Indu, the
moon,—the tree whose stem, long, dark, and leafless, resembles that of
the earthly plant from which the drink is ordered to be prepared. The
ritual resolves itself, according to De Gubernatis, into a sun-charm.
Soma, the moon, the god of plants, the lord of the dark forest of night
or winter, is the good genius who furnishes the miraculous drink
wherewith Indra, the solar hero, recruits his forces. It is under its
influence, say the Vedas, that Indra performs his great deeds. Soma does
really intoxicate the gods in heaven, incessantly renewing the triumph
of light over its enemies. The sacrifice of the soma on earth is only a
pale, naïve, and grotesque reproduction of that divine miracle.[286]
According to the Vedas, however, the soma-drink, which Windischman
describes as “the holiest offering of the ancient Indian worship,” had a
genuinely intoxicating effect. It is described as “stimulating speech,”
“calling forth the ardent thought,” “generating hymns with the powers of
a poet”; and is invoked as “bestower of good, master of a thousand
songs, the leader of sages.” A hymn in the Rig-Veda has been thus
translated:—
We’ve quaffed the Soma bright
And are immortal grown,
We’ve entered into light
And all the gods have known.
What mortal now can harm
Or foeman vex us more?
Through thee, beyond alarm,
Immortal god! we soar.[287]
In the Hindu worship the fermented juice of the soma-plant was presented
in ladles to the deities invoked, part sprinkled on the sacrificial
fire, part on the sacred grass strewed upon the floor, and the remainder
invariably drunk by those who conducted the ceremony.[288] In early
times, says Windischman, its use was looked upon as a holy action, and
as a sacrament by which the union with Brahma was obtained.
The _ambrosia_ of the Olympian gods, like the word itself, was no doubt
in its essence identical with the Vedic _amrita_ or _soma_. It contained
the principle of immortality, and was hence withheld from mortals. But
the word was also applied, like the soma, to a mixture of various fruits
used in religious rites.[289] A still closer analogy, however, with the
Hindu and Persian conception is to be found in the cult of Dionysus, who
was regarded as present in the wine, which was his gift to man. “He,
born a god,” says Euripides, “is poured out in libations to the
gods.”[290] And again, “This god is a prophet. For when he forces his
way into the body, he makes those who rave to foretell the future.”[291]
The fact that Dionysus was essentially a tree-god, “the spiritual form
of the vine,”[292] renders the analogy still more striking.
To discuss the genesis of the above conceptions would be to reopen the
whole question of the origin of tree-worship. The drinking of vegetable
juices, fermented or otherwise, was no doubt one of the means by which
early races were accustomed to produce dreams and visions, and so, in
their view, to get themselves possessed by or put into communication
with a spirit. It was natural, therefore, for them to assume that the
spirit in question had entered into them with the drug, and was
therefore present in it and in the plant from which it was derived. Mr.
Herbert Spencer, indeed, argues that this particular assumption was one
of the chief factors in the origin of plant-worship in general, a main
reason why plants yielding intoxicating agents, and hence other plants,
came to be regarded as containing supernatural beings.[293] It would
probably, however, be safer to conclude that the sacramental use of the
juice of plants is merely one amongst many cognate religious usages, and
like the ritual employment of wreaths in the service of the gods, the
attachment of branches to the house, and the smiting with the
“life-rood,” sprang out of the desire of men to bring nearer to
themselves a spirit already believed to exist, and thus to ensure their
enjoyment of the protection and the benefits presumed to be at his
disposal.