LOTUS. The name /otos (Lat. /otus) was given by the Greeks to a number of different plants whose fruit was used for food. One of the most notable of these is the zizyphus lotus, a native of the n. of Africa and the s. of Europe, belonging to the natu ral order rhamnece. See JUJUBE. It is a shrub of two or three feet high, and its fruit, which is produced in great abundance, is a drupe of the size of a wild plum, with an almost globose kernel. This fruit is somewhat farinaceous, and has it plemant, sweetish, 'mucilaginous taste. It is called by the Arabs nal& or nablca; and has, from the earliest times, served as an article of food to the inhabitants bf the n. of Africa, where it is still a principal part of the food of the poor. Probably it was on this fruit that Homer's Mophagi (q.v.) liVed.--The fruit of the diospyrus lotus, or date plum, was sometimes called the lotus. See DATE PLUM.—The name lotus was also given to several beautiful species of water-lily (q.v.), especially to the BLUE WATER-LILY (nympheea camilea) and the EOYPTIAN WATER-LILY (N. lotus), and to the nelumbo (q.v.) (nelumbium speciosum), which grow in stagnant and slowly running water in the s. of Asia and n. of Africa. The nymphma lotus was called by the Egyptians shnin or seshin, and is called by the Arabs beshnia, the Coptic name with the masculine article. It grows in the Nile and adjacent rivulets, and has a large white flower. The root is eaten by the people who live near the lake Menzaleh. The rivulets near Damietta abound with this flower, which rises two feet above the water. It was the rose of ancient Egypt, the favorite flower of the country, and is often sceu made into wreaths or garlands, placed on the foreheads of females, or held in their hands, and smelled for its fragrance. It frequently appears in
the hieroglyphs, where it represents the upper country or southern Eg,ypt, and entered largely into works of art—the capitals of columns, prows of boats, heads of staves, and other objects being fashioned in its shape. In the mythology, it was the special emblem of Nefer Atum, the son of Ptah and Bast; the god Harpocrates is seated upon it; and there was a mystical lotus of the sun. Iu the mythology of the Hindus and Chinese the lotus plays a distinguished part. It is the nelumbo. The Hindu deities of the different sects are often represented seated on a throne of its shape, or on the expanded flower. The color in southern India is white or red, the last color fabled to be derived from the blood of Siva, when Kamadeva, or Cupid, wounded him with the love-arrow. Lakshnit,. also, was called the "lotus-boru," from having ascended from the ocean on its flower. It symbolized the world; the meru, or residence of the gods; and female beauty. Among the Chinese, the lotus had a similar reputation and poetic meaning, being especially connected with Fuh, or Buddha, and symbolizing female beauty, the small feet of their women being called kin leen, or "golden lilies." Wilkinson, Mann. and Cust., iii. 187, 200, iv. 44, 63, v. 264, 269; Jomard, Descr.
t. 1, s. 5; Homer, xii. 238, iv. 171, Od. ix. 92; Herodotus, ii. 96, iv. 177; Died. Sic. i. 34; Coleman„ifytkoZogy of the Hindus.