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This sentence forms the Alpha and Omega of Lama worship, and
is unceasingly repeated by the devotees of Thibet and the slopes of
the Himalayas. For the easy multiplication of this prayer, that extraordinary
contrivance, the pray ing-wheel, was invented. In accordance
with the principles of this belief, Jin-ch’au represents
all creation as a succession of worlds, typified hy Lotus-fiowers,
which are contained one within the other, until intelligence is lost
in the effort to multiply the series ad infinitum. A legend conneaed
with Buddha runs as follows In an unknown/own, called
Bandnumah, Bipaswi Buddh arrived one day, and having fixed his
abiding place on a mountain to the east of Ndg-Hmd, saw in a
pool a seed of the Lotus on the day of the full moon, in the month
of Chait. Soon afterwards from this Lotus-seed sprang a Lotus-
fiower, in the middle of which appeared Swayambhu, in the
form of a luminary, on the day of the full moon in the month
of Asvins. Another Buddhist legend relates that the King Pandn
had the imprudence to burn a tooth of Buddha, which was
held in high reverence among the Kalingas; but a Lotus-fiower
sprang from the middle of the fiame, and the tooth of Buddha
was found lying on its petals. In Eastern India, it is popularly
thought that the god Brahma first appeared on a sea of milk,
in a species of Lotus of extraordinary grandeur and beauty,
which grew at Temerapu, and which typified the umbilicus of that
ocean of sweetness. To that fiower is given eighteen names, which
celebrate the god’s different beauties; and within its petals he is
believed to sleep during six months of the year. Kamadeva, the
Indian Cupid, was first seen floating down the sacred Ganges,
pinioned with fiowers, on the blossom of a roseate Lotus. The
Hindus compare their country to a Lotus-fiower, of which the
petals represent Central India, and the eight leaves the surrounding
eight divisions of the country. The sacred images of the Indians,
Japanese, and Tartars are nearly always found seated upon the
leaves of the Lotus. The sacred Lotus, as the hallowed symbol
of mystery, was deemed by the priests of India and China an
appropriate ornament for their religious struihures, and hence its
spreading tendrils and perfecfl blossoms are found freely introduced
as architectural enrichments of the temples of the East. Terms
of reverence, endearment, admiration, and eulogy have been freely
lavished by Indian writers on the fiowers of the L o tu / dear to the
sick women of their race from the popular belief of its efficacy in
soothing painful feelings. Nearly every portion of the human
body has been compared by Indian poets to the Lotus; and in
one of their works, the feet of the angels are said to resemble the
fiowers of that sacred plant. The Persians represent the Sun
as being robed with light and crowned with Lotus. B y the
Japanese, the Lotus is considered as a sacred plant, and pleasing
to their deities, whose images are often seen sitting on its large
leaves. The blossom is deemed by them the emblem of purity
because it is unsullied by the muddy waters in which it often
grows: with the fiowers of the Mother-wort it is borne aloft in
vases before the body in funeral processions. The Chinese make
the Lotus typical of female beauty: their god Puzza is always
represented as seated upon the leaves of the plant. The Lotus
is stated to be held sacred by the Egyptians because it conceals
the secret of the gods; from the throne of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys,
it rises in the midst of the waters, bearing on the margin of its
blossom the four genii. It is the “ Bride of the Nile,” covering the
surface of the mighty river, as it rises, with its fragrant white
blossom. Like the Indians, the ancient Egyptians represented the
creation of the world under the form of a Nymphaeathat floated on the
surface of the waters. The Lotus was consecrated by the Egyptians
to the Sun, and the dawn of day was figured by them as a youth
seated upon a flower of the Nymphsea. The god Osiris (the Egyptian
Phoebus) is represented as having his head decorated with the sacred
Lotus. Oblations of flowers were common among the offerings of the
Egyptians to their gods. A papyrus in the British Museum (lent
by the Prince of Wales) represents the altar of the god Re or Ra
piled up with Lotus-blossoms and other offerings. Upon approaching
a place of worship, the ancient Egyptian always held the
flower of the Lotus or Agrostis in his hand. A single flower was
sometimes deemed a suitable oblation, or a bouquet of the Lotus
or Papyrus, carefully arranged in a prescribed form, was offered.------
The Lotus typified Upper E g y p t ; the Papyrus, Lower Egypt. In
the British Museum are several Egyptian statues with sceptres of
the Lotus; and a mummy with crossed arms, holding in each hand
a Lotus-flower. In the mummies of females the Lotus is found,,
placed there probably to typify regeneration or purification. A
bust of Isis emerging from a Lotus-flower has often been mirtaken
for Clytie changing into a Sunflower. The Egyptians cultivated
three species of Nymphaeaceae—the Nymphea cerulea, or blue-flowered
Lotus ; the Nymphea Lotus, a white-flowered_ variety, which still
grows profusely in Lower Egypt, and which is the flower represented
in the mosaic pavement at Praeneste; and, lastly, the Nelum-
bium speciosum, or Sacred Bean—the “ Rose L ily ” of Herodotus—
the true Lotus of the Egyptians, whose blossoms are of a brilliant
red colour, and hang over broad peltated le a v e s: its fruit is formed
of many valves, each containing a Nut about the size of a Filbert,
with a taste more delicate than that of the Almond. It has been
thought that the use of the seeds in .making bread, and the mode
of sowing them, by enclosing each seed in a ball of clay, and throwing
it into the water, maybe alluded to in the text, “ Cast thy bread:
upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” The
Nelumbo maintains its sacred character in Africa, India, China,
Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia; it has, however, disappeared
from Egypt. The Arabians call the Lotus, Nuphar; and the
Syrians regard it as a symbol of the cradle of Moses, and typify,.
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