That the ideas symbolised by the various sacred trees of antiquity originated, however, with the fig-tree is extremely probable. No other tree has been so widely venerated as this. The sycamore (_ficus sycamorus_) was sacred to Netpe, the mother of Osiris, whose statue was generally made of its wood. In relation to that subject, Sir Gardner Wilkinson says:[39] “The Athenians had a holy fig-tree, which grew on the ‘sacred road,’ where, during the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, the procession which went from Athens to Eleusis halted. This was on the sixth day of the ceremony, called Jacchus, in honour of the son of Jupiter and Ceres, who accompanied his mother in search of Proserpine; but the fig-tree of Athens does not appear to have been borrowed from the sycamore of Egypt, unless it were in consequence of its connection with the mother of Osiris and Isis, whom they supposed to correspond to Ceres and Bacchus.”[40] According to Plutarch, a basket of figs formed one of the chief things carried in the processions in honour of Bacchus, and the sacred phallus, like the statue of Priapus, appears to have been generally made of the wood of the fig-tree.[41] These facts well show the nature of the ideas which had come to be connected with that tree. To what has been already said may, however, be added the testimony of a French writer, who, after speaking of the _lotus_ as one of the many symbols anciently used to represent the productive forces of nature, continues: “Il faut y joindre, pour le règne végétal, le figuier indien, ou l’arbre des Banians, le figuier sacré ou religieux (ficus indica, bengalensis, ficus religiosa, &c.), _vata_, _aswatha_, _pipala_, et bien d’autres, idéalisés de bonne heure, dans le mythologie des Hindous, sous la figure de l’arbre de vie, arbre immense, colonne de feu, énorme et orgueilleux phallus, l’abord unique, mais depuis devisé et dispersé, et qui n’est peut-être pas sans rapport, soit avec l’arbre de la connaissance du bien et du mal, soit avec d’autres symboles non moins fameux.”[42]