"THE TREE OF LIFE": EVIL AND GOOD

Modern fashion hangs onto ethnic styles. Everything is in fashion now - from extravagant skull caps to cosy headscarves. If you take a closer look, you can find symbols on some of these accessories, patterns and ornaments - tokens that were symbols, ways of thinking and the language of life for our ancestors. "The Tree of Life" pattern is extremely popular just now and you can see it even on the gems of well-known jewellery companies worldwide. But its meaning is little known. Azerbaijani scientists have concluded that "The Tree of Life" dates back to our origins.

It started with…

The roots of the idea "The World Tree" or "The Tree of Life" go back centuries. Perhaps primeval people worshipped the tree as a bringer of fruit (food) or as a totem but, with the arrival of mythology, the role of the tree in the myths of various peoples proved to be more than significant. For example, in Scandinavian mythology the world tree - the sacred ash tree Igdrasil - connects various worlds: heaven, earth, underworld (nine worlds). At its top there is an eagle and a hawk, at its root there is a dragon and a snake and below its roots there are sacred brooks. As we know, modern surveys carried out by Thor Heyerdahl suppose a genetic link between the ancient inhabitants of Azerbaijan and the ancestors of the Vikings. For this reason, no matter how often Armenian scientists say that the ancestors of Odin did not go further than ancient Armavir, Scandinavian and Turkic myths are much closer to each other than would appear at first sight.

The myths of many peoples describe a similar tree of life and fate: birds on top and water at its base. In general, a pool or any other reservoir is exactly the sign that makes it possible to differentiate between the tree of life and ordinary detail of vegetation in any ornament. According to the mythology of Turkic-speaking people, the bird is an image of the spirit of the dead, which is why it is shown on top of the tree (in the "heavenly" world). However, in ornaments of the later period, including upon Azerbaijani carpets, this sacral meaning was lost, and birds began to symbolize people in love. If their heads were shown turned away from each other, this meant a quarrel or separation.

In ancient Iranian mythology, the image of the holy bird - Simurq - was noted for its close link to the idea of the world tree. Simurq is a prophetic bird with the head and paws of a dog, and with wings and fish scales, which symbolized its domination on earth, in the air and water. We can assume that owing to this symbolic meaning of Simurq, the tree of life in Azerbaijani carpets is almost always accompanied by fish in water at its root, birds in its branches and dogs at its sides. Moreover, under the Safavis, the image of the Simurq bird became Iran's emblem, which also boosted the tradition of reflecting this image in Azerbaijani people's arts.

The Christian and Muslim religions attach great importance to the symbols of the tree of life as they explain the sins of the first people on earth who tasted the fruits of paradise and learnt about evil and good. Having tasted the apple (in the ancient Jewish tradition - wheat, there are also other versions) people turned into "gods who know evil and good". The image of paradise as a flourishing garden was characteristic of the Avestic religion as well. It was called "paradise" (in the course of time, this word entered many European languages without changing its meaning) and was a kind of hunting park within a square boundary. The Iranian elite tried to embody the luxury of the garden of paradise in real architectural forms - in their castles and gardens.

In our region, Zoroastrianism was replaced by Islam, in which paradise, according to the Koran, was "a garden of eternity" or "gardens of virtue". The word "jannat" - which often means paradise in Muslim mythology - actually means "garden" in Arabic. According to the Koran, there are several rivers - of water, milk, wine and honey - flowing in paradise and the main river is Al-Kawsar. It is no accident that the composition of some carpets includes pictures of rivers and a central lake situated right at the foot of the central tree that symbolizes the tree of life. 

Incidentally, the Koran mentions several quite specific types of trees that grow in the garden of paradise: "palms and pomegranates", "talha (acacia) with fruits" and "a lotus without thorns". So the little palms, lotus, fruit and pomegranates, as well as other kinds of plants, common not just in carpet patterns but also in ornaments adorning other objects, clearly have an ancient mythological basis.

Who is the gardener?

Gardens shown in Azerbaijani miniatures, which seem ordinary at first sight, represent a special form of "the garden of paradise". It is no accident that they look alike: a square lake, one or more rivers and trees, including the cypress which symbolizes the afterlife. There is one more interesting detail there: almost every miniature which depicts a garden outside a palace shows a gardener digging the ground. It is clear that this job graphically illustrates the essence of gardening, but why didn't medieval painters also show other day to day aspects of this profession, for example, trimming branches, harvesting fruit or making bouquets? Because there are no accidental ornaments in miniatures. The same gardener in every scene is a symbol. It is another matter what it symbolises...

Other researchers are sure that the gardener in this case is a kind of a hand of Themis - a reminder of justice or the ruler's arbitrariness (depending on what the author of the miniature was trying to say, i.e. how tough and fair or brutal the ruler of that period was), meaning that whatever fun the shah was having in his palace, there were also prisoners languishing somewhere and the gardener is digging a grave for some of them. This theory has many weaknesses. First, the gardeners in the miniatures of the same Tabriz school look surprisingly similar. How and on the basis of which principle should we differentiate a symbol of brutality from a symbol of justice? Second, why contaminate the shah's garden with criminals' graves? Convicts in the ancient east were buried on waste ground (if they were buried at all). Finally, it would not be wise to include such a symbol in almost all pictures depicting a festivity at the palace - most of them could depict the pure joy of life without sad connotations.

No, the gardener in miniatures is a symbol, of course, but it is not a symbol of things or justice in the world. It embodies, so to speak, the relentlessness of the end of life, departure from the world, not just for criminals, but for everyone - it is not a punishment, it is a reminder of the temporality of life. It is very typical of oriental arts... For this reason, they show a man with a spade in the shah's garden which is an image of paradise. This can have a dual meaning: "Enjoy yourself, but remember that you are not eternal (don't commit a sin)" or on the contrary, "Dance while you are young" (an idea in the spirit of Omar Khayyam).

Of course, the image of the tree of life has permeated many spheres of Azerbaijani people's arts. "Muqaddas Agac" the image of which is regarded as a good wish is used on clothes and embroidery, and is interwoven into patterns of gravestones and wall paintings. The role of this symbol can be played by various types of tree - from fruit to cypress and even the "buta" pattern. Apart from these, the tree of life is also represented by a vase of flowers which implies a long life accompanied by prosperity and welfare.

Meanwhile, none of us has ever thought that in our daily life, we may come across this or that reminder of eternal welfare, happiness and talismans. This can be the grandmother's carpet depicting a garden of paradise (while we, spoilt by cheap realism, can only see "distorted" pictures of trees). It may be in paintings at the Palace of the Saki Khans or stucco moulding in an old Baku mansion, while we think in passing that the motif of a vase of flowers looks trite and old-fashioned. And a pattern of palms and lotus on a new dress will be valued by the degree of its compliance with fashion...

However, in summer many of us try to get to our own little paradise - the dacha. And here our genetic memory appears. Is it only for considerations of prestige that every local dacha owner thinks it necessary to arrange a pool at their dacha? No, we feel that such lucky people get their own little paradise: the tree of life that protects their family, a pool with fish at its root, birds in its branches and dogs at its sides...