The name · Persian
sarv سروThe cypress, Persia’s tree of the free.
Free
Green in every season
In the Gulistan, written in 1258, the poet Saadi explains why only the cypress is called āzād, “free”.
“They call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit.”Saadi, Gulistan, as quoted by Thoreau in Walden
It is never bound to a season of bloom and a season of withering. It simply stays green.
Eternal
Four thousand years and counting
The cypress was sacred in ancient Persia. The Cypress of Abarkuh in central Iran has stood for more than four thousand years, and may be the oldest living thing in Asia.
Upright
Tall, rooted, unbowed
Persian poets reach for the cypress when they describe a graceful, upright bearing: sarv-e ravān, the flowing cypress.
Resilient
It bends, and does not break
The paisley pattern is thought to be a cypress with its tip bent by the wind.
For us: work that stays evergreen, steady in every season.
The name · Sanskrit
sarva सर्वAll, whole, and at its root, well.
Whole
Nothing left out
Sarva means all, every, entire. It is a word of completeness.
Well
To be whole is to be well
It grows from the same ancient root as Latin salvus, “safe, in good health”, and Greek holos, “whole”. English still carries it in safe, solid and holistic.
For all
A wish for everyone
Sarve bhavantu sukhinaḥ, sarve santu nirāmayāḥ.May all be happy; may all be free from illness.
The rise of all
Progress that lifts everyone
Sarvodaya, “the rise of all”, was Gandhi’s word for progress that leaves no one behind.
For us: software for the whole person, made for everyone.
