Paradise Pomegranate

Famously, a pomegranate occupies the role of a golden paradise apple in Classical Greek mythology. It was believed that the first pomegranate tree sprouted from the spilled blood of Dionysus, the god of fertility.

The prominence of this fruit in Greek, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish culture, as well as in the Christian tradition, probably stems from those times. Why is it described as the royal fruit, the symbol of unity, life and regeneration?

All ancient religious teachings reserved a special place for pomegranates. In Buddhism, a pomegranate was believed to be one of the blessed fruit ensuring the benevolence of fate; growing in Paradise, the fruit is a symbol of moral purification in Islam. In China, it symbolizes prosperity and a happy future.

It features throughout many sacred texts, including the Bible, where a pomegranate appears as a standard of beauty and a symbol of the world’s unity. Many medieval and Renaissance paintings depict Jesus holding a pomegranate, which denotes Christ’s gift to mankind: the eternal life. In Christianity, this symbolism gained a new spiritual dimension, standing in for the abundance of divine mercy and heavenly love.

For me, the fruit symbolizes fertility and domestic bliss: it contains more than 300 small seeds, but they all constitute an integral unity.

Depictions of continents as sites of local cultures occupy an important position on contoured maps of the world. In the present globalized world, closed-off communities in society are often juxtaposed to individuals open to exploring life in its diversity, and the new horizons.

Peaceful coexistence and, first and foremost, the alliance of various civilizations could be possible once we dispatched with preexisting stereotypes and limitations. The image of a pomegranate stands for the hope for peace between various views and traditions, and was intended to convey a respectful approach to conflicting ideologies.