Inverted Tree Reference

AntiUtopia@aol.com
Sat, 18 Sep 1999 09:33:53 -0400 (EDT) 

Jim:

    I'll transcribe the reference for you.

Leeiming, David Adams. The World of Myth. Oxford: Oxford U P, 1990.

(p. 342)

    India: The Cosmic Tree
        In the ancient UIpanishads the cosmic tree, Asvattha, represents
Brahman itself, the cosmos in full bloom. In the Bhagavad-Gita it
incorporates the world of humanity.

    Indian tradition, according to its earliest writings, represents the
cosmos in the form of a giant tree. This idea is defined fairly formally in
the Upanisads: the Universe is an inverted tree, burying its roots in the
sky and spreading its branches over the whole earth. (It is not impossible
that this image was suggested by the downpouring of the sun's rays. Cf. Rg
Veda: "The branches grow towards what is low, the roots are on high, that
its rays may descend upon us!") The Katha-Upanisad describes it like this:
"This eternal Asvattha, whose roots rise on high, and whose branches grow
low, is the pure (sukram), is the Brahman, is what we call the Non Death.
All the worlds rest in it!" The asvattha tree here represents the clearest
possible manifestation of Brahman in the Cosmos, represents, in other words,
creation as a descending movement. Other texts from the Upanisads restate
still more clearly this notion of the cosmos as a tree. "Its branches are
the ether, the air, fire, water, earth," etc. The natural elements are the
expression of this "Brahman whose name is Asvattha."

    In the Bhagavad-Gita, the cosmic tree comes to express not only the
universe, but also man's condition in the world: "It is said that there is
an indestructible tree, its roots above, its brances below, its leaves the
hymns of the Veda;. . .

whoever knows it knows the Veda also. Its branches increase in height and
depth, growing on the gunas; its buds are the objects of sense; its roots
spread out from below, bound to actions in the world of men. In this world
one cannot perceive the shape, nor the end, nor the beginning, nor the
expanse of it. With the strong weapon of renunciation, one must first cut
down this asvattha with its powerful roots, and then seek the place from
which one never returns. . ."; The whole universe, as well as the experience
of man who lives in it and is not detached from it, are here symbolized by
the cosmic tree. By everything in himself which corresponds with the cosmos
or shares in its life, man merges into the same single and immense
manifestation of Brahman. "To cut the tree at its roots" means to withdraw
man from the cosmos, to cut him off from the things of sense and the fruits
of his actions. We find the same motif of detachment from the life of the
cosmos, of withdrawal into oneself and recollection as man's only way of
transcending himself and becoming free, in a text from the Mahabharata.
"Sprung from the Unmanifested, arising from it as only support, its trunk is
bodhi, its inward cavities the channels of the sense, the great elements its
branches, the objects of the senses its leaves, its fair flowers good and
evil (dharmadharmav), pleasure and pain the consequent fruits. This eternal
Brahma-tree (brahma-vrksa) is the source of life (abjiva) for all beings. .
.Having cut asunder and broken the tree with the weapon of gnosis
(gananena), and thenceforth taking pleasure in the Spirit, none returneth
thither again.


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    Glad to help!            Steve