use, or some religious symbolism. The materials of which
different articles are fashioned, their weight, and the
colours with which they are painted, are fixed by
religious rule. An obscured symbolism of material and
colour is to be traced also in the forms of things, even
for the most domestic uses. Every detail of Indian
decoration, Aryan or Turanian, has a religious meaning,
and the arts of India will never be rightly understood
until there are brought to their study, a familiar
acquaintance with the character and subjects of the
religious poetry, national legends, and mythological
scriptures that have always been their inspiration, and
of which they are the perfected imagery." See Sir George
Birdwood's "Indian Arts," part i. p. 2.

[115] The Persian tree of life was not alien to the
worship of the Zoroastrian religion of the Sassanides,
and is said to have been the origin of the worship of
Bacchus. It was introduced by Oriental weavers into
Sicilian and Spanish stuffs.

[116] Sir G. Birdwood suggests that the honeysuckle
pattern is derived from the Tree of Life, cone, and
palm, refashioned and combined with the graceful
ingenuity of Greek art, and covering a mixture of sacred
traditional emblems.

[117] Haug, in his "Essays on the Sacred Writings of the
Parsees" (pp. 132, 239), tells us that these people
still hold the homa to be sacred, and from it squeeze a
juice used by them in their religious ceremonies.

[118] See Perrot et Chipiez, "Histoire de l'Art," vol.
ii. pp. 260, 267, Pl. xiv.

[119] See Appendix, No. 1.

[120] India, in return, afterwards influenced Persia,
the successor of Babylon.

[121] In India, the elephant is a very common element in
a pattern; in Egypt, the serpent; in Persia, the lion.
In animal patterns, certain emblems were grouped
together. The lion and the goose represent strength and
prudence; the lion and eagle, strength and dominion; the
lion and dove, strength and gentleness. We may see these
double emblems on Sicilian textiles.

[122] Chinese art is crowded with symbolisms.

[123] The double-headed eagle was the badge of Saladin,
as well as that of the Holy Roman Empire.

[124] Ezekiel xvii.

[125] In the earliest days of Christianity.

[126] "A cloud pattern from which issue two clas