The Fall (Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, ed. Procter, 1875, 4th ed.)

January 22, 2019

Type: a quote
Sub-type: mythology (< 1857)
Relevance: Genesis - the Beginning
Text: "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Genesis 2:9 "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. ... And he said, ... Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. ... Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." Genesis 3:1-24

[...] As the old traditions of their ancestors were gradually distorted, the Hindus appear to have identified the first man (Manu Swayambhuva) with Brahma himself, of whom, as of the primary cause, he was the brightest emanation; while Satarupa, the wife and counterpart of Manu, was similarly converted into the bride of the creative principle itself. Brahma, in other words, was ‘confounded with the male half of his individuality,’ so that the narratives which in sacred history relate to Adam and Eve, were not unfrequently transferred to Brahma and to his female counterpart,—Satarupa, or, according to a different form, Saraswati. Brahma thus humanized is said to have become the subject of temptation. To try him, Siva, who is, in the present story, identified with the Supreme Being, drops from heaven a blossom of the sacred vata, or Indian fig,—a tree which has been always venerated by the natives on account of its gigantic size and grateful shadow, and invested alike by Brahman and by Buddhist with mysterious significations, as ‘the tree of knowledge or intelligence’ (bodhidruma). Captivated by the beauty of this blossom, the first man (Brahma) is determined to possess it. He imagines that it will entitle him to occupy the place of the Immortal and hold converse with the Infinite: and on gathering up the blossom, he at once becomes intoxicated by this fancy, and believes himself immortal and divine. But ere the flush of exultation has subsided, God Himself appears to him in terrible majesty, and the astonished culprit, stricken by the curse of heaven, is banished far from Brahmapattana and consigned to an abyss of misery and degradation. From this, however, adds the story, an escape is rendered possible on the expiration of some weary term of suffering and of penance. And the parallelism which it presents to sacred history is well-nigh completed when the legend tells us further that woman, his own wife, whose being was derived from his, had instigated the ambitious hopes which led to their expulsion, and entailed so many ills on their posterity.

Hardwick, Charles, Christ and Other Masters, 4th ed., ed. by Francis Procter, London: Macmillan and Co., 1875, p. 215.

The Hindu legend approaches very nearly to that preserved in the Hebrew scriptures. Thus, it is said that Siva, as the Supreme Being, desired to tempt Brahmá (who had taken human form), and for this object he dropped from heaven a blossom of the sacred fig-tree. Brahmá, instigated by his wife, Satarupa, endeavors to obtain this blossom, thinking its possession will render him immortal and divine; but when he has succeeded in doing so, he is cursed by Siva, and doomed to misery and degradation. Mr. Hardwicke, when commenting on this tradition, adds that the sacred Indian fig is endowed by the Brahmans and Buddhists with mysterious significance, as the tree of knowledge or intelligence. [...]

Westropp, Hodder Michael; Charles Staniland Wake, Ancient Symbol Worship: Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of Antiquity, New York: J. W. Bouton; London: Trubner & Co., 1874, pp. 46-47.