The Inverted Tree
There is a sacred fig tree with roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the Vedic hymns.
Krishna describes existence as an inverted cosmic tree (ashvattha) with roots in the transcendent and branches extending downward into the world. This powerful image shows that the source is above (spiritual) and the manifestation is below (material). The leaves are the Vedas—the tree is sustained by sacred knowledge. To attain liberation, this tree of worldly attachment must be cut down with the axe of detachment. Then one can find the root, the eternal source.
There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down, and the Vedic hymns are its leaves. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.
This inverted tree imagery appears in many traditions—the Norse World Tree, Kabbalistic Tree of Life—suggesting universal intuition of our transcendent source.
Bhagavad Gita