The Majority Of
Such Holy Trees In Persia Appear To Be Plane-Trees.
Admiration for the
beauty of this tree seems to have occasionally risen into superstitious
veneration from a very old date.
Herodotus relates that the Carians, after
their defeat by the Persians on the Marsyas, rallied in the sacred grove
of Plane-trees at Labranda. And the same historian tells how, some years
later, Xerxes on his march to Greece decorated a beautiful Chinar with
golden ornaments. Mr. Hamilton, in the same region, came on the remains of
a giant of the species, which he thought might possibly be the very same.
Pliny rises to enthusiasm in speaking of some noble Plane-trees in Lycia
and elsewhere. Chardin describes one grand and sacred specimen, called
King Hosain's Chinar, and said to be more than 1000 years old, in a suburb
of Ispahan, and another hung with amulets, rags, and tapers in a garden at
Shiraz.[7] One sacred tree mentioned by the Persian geographer Hamd Allah
as distinguishing the grave of a holy man at Bostam in Khorasan (the
species is not named, at least by Ouseley, from whom I borrow this) comes
into striking relation with the passage in our text. The story went that
it had been the staff of Mahomed; as such it had been transmitted through
many generations, until it was finally deposited in the grave of Abu
Abdallah Dasitani, where it struck root and put forth branches. And it is
explicitly called Dirakht-i-Khushk, i.e. literally L'ARBRE SEC.
This last legend belongs to a large class. The staff of Adam, which was
created in the twilight of the approaching Sabbath, was bestowed on him in
Paradise and handed down successively to Enoch and the line of Patriarchs.
After the death of Joseph it was set in Jethro's garden, and there grew
untouched, till Moses came and got his rod from it. In another form of the
legend it is Seth who gets a branch of the Tree of Life, and from this
Moses afterwards obtains his rod of power. These Rabbinical stories seem
in later times to have been developed into the Christian legends of the
wood destined to form the Cross, such as they are told in the Golden
Legend or by Godfrey of Viterbo, and elaborated in Calderon's Sibila del
Oriente. Indeed, as a valued friend who has consulted the latter for me
suggests, probably all the Arbre Sec Legends of Christendom bore mystic
reference to the Cross. In Calderon's play the Holy Rood, seen in vision,
is described as a Tree: -
- - "cuyas hojas,
Secas mustias y marchitas,
Desnudo el tronco dejaban
Que, entre mil copas floridas
De los arboles, el solo
Sin pompa y sin bizaria
Era cadaver del prado."
There are several Dry-Tree stories among the wonders of Buddhism; one is
that of a sacred tree visited by the Chinese pilgrims to India, which had
grown from the twig which Sakya, in Hindu fashion, had used as a
tooth-brush; and I think there is a like story in our own country of the
Glastonbury Thorn having grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.
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