Paradise Beach, New South Wales

In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, a land of luxury and fulfillment. Paradise is often described as a "higher place", the holiest place, in contrast to this world, or underworlds such as Hell.

In eschatological contexts, paradise is imagined as an abode of the virtuous dead. In Christianity and Islam, Heaven is a paradisiacal relief. In old Egyptian beliefs, the underworld is Aaru, the reed-fields of ideal hunting and fishing grounds where the dead lived after judgment. For the Celts, it was the Fortunate Isle of Mag Mell. For the classical Greeks, the Elysian fields was a paradisiacal land of plenty where the heroic and righteous dead hoped to spend eternity. In Buddhism, paradise and the heaven are synonymous, with higher levels available to beings who have achieved special attainments of virtue and meditation. In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the "Best Existence" and the "House of Song" are places of the righteous dead. On the other hand, in cosmogonical contexts 'paradise' describes the world before it was tainted by evil.

The concept is a theme in art and literature, particularly of the pre-Enlightenment era, a well-known representative of which is John Milton's ''Paradise Lost''.

Etymology and concept history

The word "paradise" entered English from the French ''paradis'', inherited from the Latin ''paradisus'', from Greek ''parádeisos'' (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian form, from Proto-Iranian''*parādaiĵah-'' "walled enclosure", whence Old Persian 𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎹𐎭𐎠𐎶 ''p-r-d-y-d-a-m /paridaidam/'', Avestan 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌⸱𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬰𐬀 ''pairi-daêza-''. The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is "walled (enclosure)", from ''pairi-'' 'around' (cognate with Greek περί, English peri- of identical meaning) and ''-diz'' "to make, form (a wall), build" (cognate with Greek τεῖχος 'wall'). The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root ''*dheigʷ'' "to stick and set up (a wall)", and ''*per'' "around".''New Oxford American Dictionary''

By the 6th/5th century BCE, the Old Iranian word had been borrowed into Assyrian ''pardesu'' "domain". It subsequently came to indicate the expansive walled gardens of the First Persian Empire, and was subsequently borrowed into Greek as παράδεισος ''parádeisos'' "park for animals" in the ''Anabasis'' of the early 4th century BCE Athenian Xenophon, Aramaic as ''pardaysa'' "royal park", and Hebrew as פַּרְדֵּס ''pardes'', "orchard" (appearing thrice in the Tanakh