Abstract:
The Near East has a large desert and caravans take some days to cross it. Sometimes a camel loses its contact with the caravan and the rider is stranded in such an environment where he finds the date as the only source which could sustain life for some days. To him it would be fruit of life and he considered the date palm as a sacred tree. In those days trees were also worshipped. The canopy of date palm became a fan-like symbol of life and was considered auspicious. This symbol went to Rome and Greece and is found in their art. Now there is a desert also in Persia, but the tree is the pomegranate which grows on hilly sites. It played the same role in ancient Assyria as the date palm did in Mesopotamia. When the date palm was worshipped, it took the form of fertility worship. The cone of male flowers was made to touch the female tree that was being worshipped. This act became a regular rite of tree worship and even pomegranate trees were worshipped by touching them with a cone of male flowers of the date palm. Since the date palm was known earlier, as the sacred tree, the pomegranate tree, when sanctified, was misidentified by archealogists as the date palm. The present article considers the date palm and the pomegranate tree both as idealized. Above all, the pomegranate is a red fruit and redness is considered life-essence. Then a child carrying a pomegranate on a branch is supposed to have his life prolonged. Now the peach is also red at the core; hence a child carrying a pair of peaches on a branch is also supposed to have his life prolonged; pomegranate seeds symbolize fertility and its redness soul, hence longevity.
Page(s):
379-387
DOI:
DOI not available
Published:
Journal: Proceedings of Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Volume: 27, Issue: 4, Year: 1990