Paradise

In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfillment. Paradise is often described as a 'higher place', the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell.Or do you think that you will enter Paradise while such has not yet come to you as came to those who passed on before you? They were touched by poverty and hardship and were shaken until messenger and those who believed with him said,'When is the help of Allah ?' Unquestionably, the help of Allah is near. — Qur'an, chapter 2 (Al-Baqarah), ayah 214 (Saheeh International) In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfillment. Paradise is often described as a 'higher place', the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell. In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christian and Islamic understanding, Heaven is a paradisiacal relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the otherworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. The Vedic Indians held that the physical body was destroyed by fire but recreated and reunited in the Third Heaven in a state of bliss. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the 'Best Existence' and the 'House of Song' are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmological contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil. The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, a well-known representative of which is John Milton's Paradise Lost. The word 'paradise' entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian form, from Proto-Iranian*parādaiĵah- 'walled enclosure', whence Old Persian ??????? p-r-d-y-d-a-m /paridaidam/, Avestan ?????⸱????? pairi-daêza-. By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been borrowed into Assyrian pardesu 'domain'. It subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire, and was subsequently borrowed into Greek as παράδεισος parádeisos 'park for animals' in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon, Aramaic as pardaysa 'royal park', and Hebrew as פַּרְדֵּס pardes, 'orchard' (appearing thrice in the Tanakh; in the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs 4:13), Ecclesiastes (Ecclesiastes 2:5) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:8)). In the Septuagint (3rd–1st centuries BCE), Greek παράδεισος parádeisos was used to translate both Hebrew פרדס pardes and Hebrew גן gan, 'garden' (e.g. (Genesis 2:8, Ezekiel 28:13): it is from this usage that the use of 'paradise' to refer to the Garden of Eden derives. The same usage also appears in Arabic and in the Quran as firdaws فردوس. The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ 'to stick and set up'.It is reflected in Avestan as ?????⸱????? pairi-daêza-. The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is 'walled (enclosure)', from pairi- 'around' (cognate with Greek περί, English peri- of identical meaning) and -diz 'to make, form (a wall), build' (cognate with Greek τεῖχος 'wall'). The idea of a walled enclosure was not preserved in most Iranian usage, and generally came to refer to a plantation or other cultivated area, not necessarily walled. For example, the Old Iranian word survives as Pardis in New Persian as well as its derivative pālīz (or 'jālīz'), which denotes a vegetable patch. The word pardes does not appear before the post-Exilic period (post-538 BCE); it occurs in the Song of Songs 4:13, Ecclesiastes 2:5, and Nehemiah 2:8, in each case meaning 'park' or 'garden', the original Persian meaning of the word, where it describes to the royal parks of Cyrus the Great by Xenophon in Anabasis. Later in Second Temple era Judaism 'paradise' came to be associated with the Garden of Eden and prophesies of restoration of Eden, and transferred to heaven. The Septuagint uses the word around 30 times, both of Eden, (Gen. 2:7 etc.) and of Eden restored (Ezek. 28:13, 36:35 etc.). In the Apocalypse of Moses, Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise (instead of Eden) after having been tricked by the serpent. Later after the death of Adam, the Archangel Michael carries the body of Adam to be buried in Paradise, which is in the Third Heaven.