LOTUS.
Nufar, . . . . .ARAB. Nilofar, . . . PERS.
Padma. podoo, . BENG. Kamala, Padma, . SANSK. Komol, Ponglmj, „ Tamare, . . . TAM.
Lien-ngau, . . CHIN. Yerra tamare, . . TEL. Ambuj, Kangwel, HIND. Tellani padmam, . . „ Lotus is a name given to three plants ; the Nelumbium speciosum, or Egyptian lotus, figured on the ancient monuments of Egypt and India, is now extinct in Egypt, but grows in the south of Asia and in the islands of the Archipelago ; one lotus of the ancients was the Melilotus officin alis, and the lotus of the Lotophagi is by some thought to be the fruit of the Zizyphus lotus, Desfontaines, but by Munby supposed to be that of Nitraria tridentata, called Damouch by the Arabs of the desert of Soussa, near Tunis. Its berries have intoxicating qualities.
With the ancient Egyptians, and after them with the Buddhists and Hindus up to the present day, in India, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, China, and Japan, the lotus flower of the Nymphma pubescens, Wilkie., has been an emblem of peculiar sanctity. It is the Indian or Egyptian lotus. Its large white flowers have a vinous smell. N. rubra, Roxb., and N. versicolor, Roxb.' are also of India ; as also N. edulis, D. C., the roots of which are eaten and medicinal.
The Nile was a sacred river; many of its plants, as the Faba /Egyptiaca, a species of bean, and the Nymphma, were sacred also ; and the former on account of its resemblance to a boat, and the latter from its well - known quality of always floating above the surface of the water, were adopted very generally as symbols of the ark. The Egyptian priests were accustomed to crown themselves with the lotus. The lily of 1 Kings vii. 26, the emblem of the Israelites, is supposed to be the lotus.
The lotus flower among the Hindus enters into all the ornaments of brass vessels used in the temples ; it is alluded to in the most popular poems, and their poets say that the lotus was dyed by the blood of Siva that flowed from the wound made by the arrow of Kama, the Indian Cupid, as in Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii.
`Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell ; It fell upon a little western flower— Before, milk-white, now purple with Love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness.' Moore sang of the water lilies ' These virgin lilies, all the night Bathing their beauties in the lake That they may rise more fresh and bright When their beloved sun's awake.' In the Ratnavali, or the Necklace,—a Sanskrit play written in the 12th century,—Vasantaka says to his lady-love : E My beloved Sagarika, thy countenance is as radiant as the moon ; thy eyes are two lotus-buds ; thy hand is the full-blown flower, and thy arms its graceful filaments.' In Hindu theogony, the lotus floating on the water is an emblem of the world ; the whole plant signifies both the earth and its two principles of fecundation.
In Japanese mythology we find the goddess Quan-won represented sitting upon the same aquatic plant. In China, the deity upon the lotus in the midst of waters has been long a favourite emblem • and the god Vishnu, in Hindu mytho logy, is ;till represented in the same manner. In connection with this diluvian emblem, Diana is mentioned by Strabo, Artemidorus, and Pans anias, by the title of Limnatis, or the maritime deity. In an ancient inscription in Gruter, she is also called Regina undarum, queen of the waves ; and Orpheus invokes her under the appellation of preserver of ships. It is possible that an eastern legend may have given origin to the transfor mation of the nymph Lotis flying from Priapus into the Aquatica lotus.—Ovid, Metamorph. ix. p. 341. See Nelumbium ; Nymphma; Padma.