This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a Tau. As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated, one is the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human couple--the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed its spiritual principle to Sophia-Achamoth--to eat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis represents Divine Wisdom. The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, are all symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree, so sacred with the Hindus, since Vishnu, during one of his incarnations, reposed under its mighty shade, and there taught humanity philosophy and sciences, is called the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protective umbrage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them in the mysteries of life and death. The _Java_-ALEIM of the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldean tradition, to have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the present day Foh-tchou,[602] who lives in his Foh-Maëyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of “Kouin-long-sang,”[603] the great mountain, produces his greatest religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shŭ, or the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone gives immortality. This marvellous display takes place every three years, when an immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assemble in pilgrimage at the holy place. Ilda-Baoth, the “Son of Darkness,” and the creator of the material world, was made to inhabit the planet Saturn, which identifies him still more with the Jewish Jehovah, who was Saturn himself, according to the Ophites, and is by them denied his Sinaitic name. From Ilda-Baoth emanate six spirits, who respectively dwell with their father in the seven planets. These are Saba--or Mars; Adonai--Sol, or the Sun;[604] Ievo--the Moon; Eloi--Jupiter; Astaphoi--Mercury (spirit of water); and Ouraïos--Venus, spirit of fire.[605] In their functions and description as given, these seven planets are identical with the Hindu _Sapta-Loca_, the seven places or spheres, or the superior and inferior worlds; for they represent the kabalistic seven spheres. With the Ophites, they belong to the lower spheres. The monograms of these Gnostic planets are also Buddhistic, the latter differing, albeit slightly, from those of the usual astrological “houses.” In the explanatory notes which accompany the diagram, the names of Cirenthius (the disciple of Simon Magus), of Menander, and of certain other Gnostics, whose names are not to be met with in the Patristic writings, are often mentioned; such as Parcha (Ferho), for instance.[606]