Vanishing theorem for irreducible symmetric spaces of noncompact type

We prove the following vanishing theorem. Let M be an irreducible symmetric space of noncompact type whose dimension exceeds 2 and $M\ne SO_0(2,2)/SO(2)\tm SO(2).$ Let E be any vector bundle over M, Then any E-valued $L^2$ harmonic 1-form over M vanishes. In particular we get the vanishing theorem for harmonic maps from irreducible symmetric spaces of noncompact type.