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SECTION VIII.
The Lotus,
as a Universal Symbol.
Therk are no ancient symbols without a deep and philosophical
meaning attached to them, their importance and significance increasing
with their antiquity. Such is the Lotus. It is the flower sacred to
Nature and her Gods, and represents the Abstract and the Concrete
Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive powers of both
Spiritual and Physical Nature.
antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians,
It was held as sacred from the remotest
and by the Buddhists
after them. It was revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a
Christian emblem b}^ the Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a
messenger, as do now the Christians, who have replaced it with the
water-lily.
In the Christian religion, in every picture of the Annunciation,
Gabriel, the Archangel, appears to the Virgin Mary, holding in his
hand a spray of water-lilies. This spray, typifying Fire and Water, or
the idea of creation and generation, symbolizes precisely the same idea as
the Lotus, in the hand of the Bodhisattva who announces to Maha-
Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of Buddha, the world's Saviour.
Thus also, were Osiris and Horus constantly represented by the
Egyptians in association with the Lotus-flower, both being Sun-Gods
or Gods of Fire; just as the Holy Ghost is still typified by "tongues
of fire," in the Acts.
It had, and still has, its mystic meaning, which is identical in every
nation on earth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.* With the
Hindus, the I^otus is the emblem of the productive power of Nature,
"O Thou
through the agency of Fire and Water, or Spirit and Matter.
See Dissertations Relating to Asia.