Truncum quoque ligni non parvae magnitudinis in altum erectum sub divo colebant,
patria eum lingua Irminsul appellantes, quod Latine dicitur universalis columna,
quasi sustinens omnia.^17
Presumably this visible, tangible pillar was not really believed to be holding
up the sky, but was a representation of the mythical pillar at the world’s
centre.
Taken together, this Vedic, Greek, and Germanic evidence might be con-
sidered to point to Indo-European status for the concept. But the inference is
by no means certain. The Greek myth might be derived from the Near East,
and the Indic and Germanic ideas of a pillar from the shamanistic cosmolo-
gies of the Finno-Ugric and other peoples of central and northern Asia.^18
Here the pillar of the sky is symbolized by the pole supporting the human
dwelling, or by a separate sacred standing pole. It is a form of the axis mundi
associated with the shaman’s passage between higher and lower worlds.
The idea of the world tree is also at home in this context.^19 Within the
Indo-European orbit this appears notably in the cosmic tree of Norse
mythology, known as the Ash (of ) Yggdrasil. The gods meet at it daily to
confer. Its branches extend across the whole world and over the sky. Dew falls
from it onto the earth. Its three roots grow among mankind, among the Frost
Giants, and over Hel. Various creatures live in it and feed on it, including the
dragon Nidhogg, who eats away at the Niflheim root.^20
Is this the development of an Indo-European conception, or an import
from north Asiatic cosmology? Certain details point towards the latter
alternative.^21 If the world tree was an Indo-European idea, it has left few traces
elsewhere. In Indo-Iranian texts there are references to a mythical tree that
drips the immortal fluid Soma/Haoma, but it is not pictured as a mighty
cosmic tree uniting upper and lower worlds; in the Veda it is located in
the third heaven, in the Avesta it stands in the fabulous but terrestrial lake
Vourukasˇa from which all rivers flow. According to a later Pahlavi source an
evil lizard lurks beneath it, trying to get at the Haoma.^22 There is perhaps an
(^17) Translatio S. Alexandri 3, ed. B. Krusch, NGG Phil.-hist. Kl. 1933, 426. 12. For other
sources see Grimm (1883–8), 115–19; Clemen (1928), 48. 17, 54. 20, 61. 14, 67. 19–23, cf. 68. 31.
Cf. also de Vries (1956), ii. 386–91; Davidson (1964), 196; (1988), 21–3.
(^18) For the Near Eastern evidence see West (1997), 148 f.; for the central Asian, Uno
Holmberg, Der Baum des Lebens (Helsinki 1923), 12–33; cf. de Vries (1956), ii. 388; Mircea
Eliade, Shamanism. Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton 1964), 259–66.
(^19) Cf. U. Holmberg (as n. 18), 51–70; M. Eliade (as n. 18), 117–22, 269–71.
(^20) Vo ̧luspá 19, 27, 47; Grímnismál 29–35, 44; Gylf. 15 f.; de Vries (1956), ii. 380–5; Davidson
(1964), 190–6; Lorenz (1984), 237–41, 243.
(^21) Cf. U. Holmberg (as n. 18), 67; L. Sternberg, ARW 28 (1930), 149.
(^22) RV 10. 135. 1, AV 5. 4. 3, Cha ̄ndogya Upanis
̇
ad 8. 5. 3; Yt. 1. 30, Sı ̄h ro ̄cak 1. 7, 2. 7, Vd. 20. 4;
Bundahisˇn 18, 27. 4.
346 9. Cosmos and Canon