Kikayon (קיקיון) is the Hebrew name of a plant mentioned in the
BiblicalThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
Book of
JonahJonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the central character in the Book of Jonah famous for being swallowed by a fish...
.
The first use of the term
kikayon is in the biblical book of
Jonah, Chapter 4:
- And God
God is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
created a kikayon, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to save him from his evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
. And Jonah was exceeding glad because of the kikayon.
Kikayon (קיקיון) is the Hebrew name of a plant mentioned in the
BiblicalThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
Book of
JonahJonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the central character in the Book of Jonah famous for being swallowed by a fish...
.
Origins
The first use of the term
kikayon is in the biblical book of
Jonah, Chapter 4:
- And God
God is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
created a kikayon, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to save him from his evilEvil, in many cultures, is a broad term used to describe what are seen as subjectively harmful deeds that are labeled as such to steer moral support. Evil is usually contrasted with good, which describes acts that are subjectively beneficial to the observer. In some religions, evil is an active...
. And Jonah was exceeding glad because of the kikayon. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it ate the kikayon, that it withered.
- And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a strong east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah
Jonah is the name given in the Hebrew Bible to a prophet of the northern kingdom of Israel in about the 8th century BC, the central character in the Book of Jonah famous for being swallowed by a fish...
, he became faint, and requested that he might die, and said: 'It is better for me to die than to live.'
- And God said to Jonah: You are angry for the kikayon?' And he said: 'I am greatly angry, even unto death.'
- And God said: 'You had pity on the kikayon, which you did not labor over, did not make it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh
Nineveh , an "exceeding great city", as it is called in the Book of Jonah, lay on the eastern bank of the Tigris in ancient Assyria, across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, Iraq.-Geography:Ancient Nineveh's mound-ruins of Kouyunjik and Nabī Yūnus are located...
, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattleCattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
?'
Classification
The word
kikayon is only referenced in the book of
Jonah and there is some question as to what kind of plant it is. Some hypotheses include a
gourdA gourd is a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae, or a name given to the hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants of the genus Lagenaria...
and a
castor oil plantThe castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It belongs to a monotypic genus, Ricinus, and subtribe, Ricininae. The evolution of castor and its relation to other species is currently being studied...
.
The concurrent Hebrew usage of the word refers to the
castor oil plantThe castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It belongs to a monotypic genus, Ricinus, and subtribe, Ricininae. The evolution of castor and its relation to other species is currently being studied...
.
Entheogenic interpretation
The description may indicate an
entheogenAn entheogen , in the strict sense, is a psychoactive substance used in a religious, shamanic or spiritual context. Historically, entheogens were mostly derived from plant sources and have been used in a variety of traditional religious contexts...
ic mushroom such as fly agaric (
Amanita muscariaAmanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly Amanita, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita...
). Mushrooms grow and wither very rapidly ("in a night"), were uncultivated in ancient times ("not labored over") due to the invisibility of mushroom
sporeIn biology, a spore is a reproductive structure that is adapted for dispersal and surviving for extended periods of time in unfavorable conditions...
s to the naked eye, and in some cultures the Amanita muscaria mushroom is associated with–and named after– an umbrella or parasol because of its shape ("a shadow over his head"). Paradoxically, the red cap of Amanita muscaria was also associated with the sun due to its round shape and color. When the mushroom cap is dried its color changes from red to gold, like the sun rising in the sky. The "rising sun" mushroom cap beating on Jonah's head and causing him to become faint describes the effects of fly agaric intoxication. In ancient times
wormThe term worm is used to describe many different distantly-related animals which have a long cylindrical body and no legs.Most animals called "worms" are invertebrates, but the term is also used for the amphibian caecilians and the slow worm Anguis, a legless burrowing lizard...
s, maggots,
serpentSerpent is a word of Latin origin that is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context, signifying a snake that is to be regarded not as a mundane natural phenomenon nor as an object of scientific zoology, but as the bearer of some potent symbolic value.-Cross-cultural symbolic...
s and
dragonDragons are legendary creatures, typically with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of worldwide cultures.The two most familiar interpretations of dragons are European dragons, derived from various European folk traditions, and the unrelated Oriental dragons, such as...
s all fitted into one category
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=worm (the Old English "
wyrmThe wyrm is an alternate spelling of worm or wurm, a European dragon.Other uses of the term include:* Wyrm , a malefic entity in the World of Darkness role-playing games* Wyrms , a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card...
" could mean any of these creatures), symbolizing
chthonicChthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion.Greek khthon is one of several words for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather...
forces, to which the Amanita muscaria mushroom also belonged. The
SanskritSanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It is also declared as a classical language by the government of India....
mushroom names
ahichattra(ka) and
sarpacchattra(ka) mean "snake parasol".
http://webapps.uni-koeln.de/tamil/
External links