Why Are Persian Gardens Called Paradise?
Because the English word “paradise” is, in its origins, a Persian word. The Old Persian paridaeza, an enclosed garden, became the Avestan pairidaeza, the Median pardiz, the Greek paradeisos, the Latin paradisus, the Arabic firdaus, and the modern English “paradise.” The cluster on Persian gardens and paradise treats the cultural history of the Persian garden in detail.
The Old Persian word paridaeza
The Old Persian paridaeza is composed of pari, the “around, surrounding,” and daeza, the “wall, enclosure,” and the literal meaning is “an enclosure, a wall around, a walled garden.” The word is attested in the Old Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings, and it was used to describe the royal parks, the paridaeza, that surrounded the palaces and the tombs of the Persian kings. The most famous of these Achaemenid paridaeza was the garden of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, which was one of the wonders of the ancient world and a prototype for the great Persian gardens of the later periods.
The Avestan equivalent of the Old Persian paridaeza is pairidaeza, and the Avestan word is used in the Avestan scripture to describe the pairidaeza of the Airyana Vaejah, the “expanse of the Aryans,” which is described in the Vendidad as the original homeland of the Iranian people. The word is also used in the later Zoroastrian tradition to describe the pairidaeza of the righteous, the garden of the afterlife, the place of the blessed. The cluster on Zoroastrianism treats the Zoroastrian eschatology in detail.
The Median pardiz, the form of the word that was used in the western Iranian lands, became the source of the Greek paradeisos. The Greeks encountered the word in the Achaemenid period, when the Greek mercenaries of the Achaemenid army, including the Ten Thousand of Xenophon’s Anabasis, saw the royal parks of the Persian kings and used the word paradeisos to describe them. The word passed into the Greek vocabulary and was used by Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, and many later Greek authors to describe the enclosed gardens of the East.
The Greek paradeisos
The Greek paradeisos was used in several senses in the classical and Hellenistic periods. In the first sense, the paradeisos was a royal park, an enclosed garden of the Persian king, a place of beauty, shade, and refreshment. The paradeisos of the Persian king was a sign of the king’s mastery of the natural world and his capacity to create an Eden in the middle of the desert. The most famous of the Persian paradeisoi in the Greek sources was the paradeisos of Cyrus at Sardis, the paradeisos of Cyrus at Pasargadae, and the paradeisos of the Persian king at Susa.
In the second sense, the paradeisos was a large, enclosed area of land, usually a park, a hunting ground, or a pleasure garden, used by the Persian king and the Persian aristocracy. The paradeisos of the Persian kings, which were stocked with exotic animals, plants, and birds, were among the most famous features of the Achaemenid court, and the paradeisos became a model for the royal parks of the Hellenistic kings, the Roman emperors, and the early modern European courts.
In the third sense, the paradeisos was a place of bliss, an Eden, a place where the souls of the blessed lived in eternal happiness. This use of the word was particularly common in the later Greek literature, in the Septuagint, and in the New Testament. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, used paradeisos to translate the Hebrew gan, the “garden,” of Eden, and from the Septuagint the word passed into the New Testament, the Latin Vulgate, and the modern European languages.
The Septuagint, the New Testament, and the Vulgate
The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, was composed in the third and second centuries BCE in Alexandria, in the period after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The Septuagint translators used paradeisos to translate the Hebrew gan of Eden, and the paradeisos became the Greek equivalent of the gan, the garden, of Eden. The use of the Persian word paradeisos for the garden of Eden in the Septuagint is one of the most striking examples of the influence of the Achaemenid Empire on the religious vocabulary of Western Asia.
The New Testament, written in Greek in the first century CE, used paradeisos in several places, including the paradeisos of the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), the paradeisos of the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:4), and the paradeisos of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7). The use of paradeisos in the New Testament was based on the Septuagint use of the word, and the paradeisos of the New Testament is the place of the blessed, the heaven of the Christian afterlife.
The Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, composed by St. Jerome in the late fourth century CE, used paradisus to translate the Greek paradeisos, and the Latin paradisus became the basis of the modern European words for the place of the blessed. The English word “paradise” is derived from the Latin paradisus, which is in turn derived from the Greek paradeisos, which is in turn derived from the Old Persian paridaeza. The journey of the word from the Old Persian to the English “paradise” is a journey through the major languages of Western Asia and Europe.
The Arabic firdaus and the Islamic tradition
The Arabic word firdaus, the name of the highest heaven in the Islamic tradition, is derived from the Greek paradeisos, which is in turn derived from the Old Persian paridaeza. The Quran uses the word firdaus several times, including in the famous verse of Sura 18, the verse of the Kahf, the cave, which describes the firdaus as the reward of the righteous. The Arabic firdaus became the basis of the modern Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Urdu words for the highest heaven, and the word is one of the most common religious terms in the Islamic world.
The use of the Persian word paridaeza in the Greek, Latin, and Arabic traditions is one of the most striking examples of the influence of the Persian language on the religious vocabulary of the world. The word, which originally meant “an enclosed garden,” has become the standard term in three of the world’s great religious traditions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — for the place of the blessed, the heaven of the afterlife. The cluster on Persian gardens and paradise treats the cultural history of the Persian garden, and the cluster on Zoroastrianism treats the Zoroastrian eschatology of the frashokereti, the final renovation, in which the pairidaeza of the righteous is a central concept.