Read Ebook: Fishes Flowers & Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths & Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece Babylon Rome India &c. by Anonymous

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"Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, she is Astarte, that very mother of gods, and he does not speak of her as any other than that goddess of Hierapolis.

"Unless she had been half fish, she would by no means have been called Derceto. But Atergatis, Adergatis, Atargata, Derceto, Derce, Adargidis, Atargatis, all of which are names of this goddess, are corrupt words, and from Adardaga, which in Hebrew means a magnificent or potent fish. This name was surely most suitable for Oannes, who is said to have conferred so many benefits on mankind.

"In the same way the Sepharvites called their god Adramelech, which means a magnificent king. In the fables there is generally no other reason for the figure than that because formerly Dirce, the daughter of Venus, having fallen into the sea, was by fish preserved from all injuries of the waters, or on account of the metamorphosis of Venus into a fish, when she was running away terrified at the horrible advances of the monstre Typhon.

"Manilius, in his Astronomicon, book fourth, says:--

'When Heaven grew weak and a successful fight, The giants raised and gods were saved by flight, From snaky Typhon's arms, a fish's shape Saved Venus and secured her from a rape. Euphrates hid her, and from thence his streams Owe all obedience to the fish's beams.'

"Or because a fish carried from the Euphrates an egg of wonderful size, which a dove kept warm, and hatched the Syrian goddess; hence it was that they abstained from the eating of fish. They feared that if they ate those animals the vengeance of the goddess would be aroused: that the limbs of their body would swell; that they would be covered by ulcers, and consumed by wasting disease. Plutarch says of the Pythagoreans, that of sea creatures they especially abstained from eating the fish called mullet and urtic. They abstained from eating any kind of fish in order to instruct men and accustom themselves to acts of justice, for they say that fish neither do nor are capable of doing us harm. Others abstained from fish, the same author says, because man arose from a liquid substance, and therefore they worship fish as of the same production and breeding with themselves.

"Anaximander says that men were first produced in fish, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown out, and so lived upon the land. So he contends that fishes were our common parents.

"Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaking of the river Chalos, says it was filled with large and gentle fish, which the Syrians worshipped as gods. Neither would they permit them to be injured.

"These stories about fish are by no means the growth of the more ancient ages, for about the time of the return of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, the Tyrians were in the habit of taking fish to Jerusalem for sale. In Nehemiah xiii., v. 16 the words are as follows: 'There dwell men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware and sold on the sabbath, unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.' At this time the Jews were not free from the profane rites of their neighbours, particularly such as had taken their wives from among the Philistines, who especially worshipped Dagon. To eat fish or to sell them on the public market-place was surely a great indignity to the god. There were certain fish sacred among other nations, as Pompilius among the Grecians, Anguilla among the Egyptians, and others among the Pythagoreans. In the same way as fish, so were also doves held in great honour out of favour to this god. It is, however, well known that doves were sacred to Venus, and she is Derceto.

"The temple of Dagon is called Beth-Dagon, which is pure Hebrew. 'The horsemen also being scattered in the field, fled to Azotus and went into Beth-Dagon, their idol's temple, for safety.' Venus of the Ascalonites--that is Derceto--has the very same name with Herodotus, as Mylitta, Alitta, and the mother of the gods, and about the temple of the goddess of Hierapolis fish and doves were received as sacred, and in her honour, no less than where Derceto was worshipped.

"'Paradise Lost' has the following of this deity:--

'Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark Maimed his brute image, heads and hands lopped off In his own temple on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers; Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish: yet had his temple high Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.'

"Phin.--The old Irish demi-god Pin or Fin seems to have been a form of Pineus, and, like him, was a son of Hermes, sharing, with the Budh or Da-Beoc, the exalted title of Bar-en-di, Son of the One God. It was Fin who conquered the dragon or put down serpent worship and established all the holy rites connected with Crones or Lingams, and, strangely enough, Phins or Feni, as Dr. P. W. Joyce calls them, showed like Eastern Boodhists, a great liking for both charms, which are but small phali, suitable for carrying or wearing on the person. They are exactly like the little Lingas worn on the arms, or secreted on the head or chest of Indian Sivaites. Irish history relates that Christian Feni diligently searched out and revered the teeth of St. Patrick.

"In the Brehon Laws of the Senchus Mor, the Feni or Fiannas, or champions, are described as a real historical people and the lawgivers of Irene. What Arthur and his knights were to Brythonick, British, or 'Little Briton' Kelts, Fin and his Fenians were in the two Skotias or among the Skoti.

"Before the Pagan Phin was converted, he is described as presiding over the Tara assembly 'as a Druid in strangely flowered garments' , and with a double-pointed head-dress, and bearing in his hand a book, like Brahma, Matthew, Vishnoo, and the fishy deities of Assyria, and of the Clonfest Cathedral, County Galway, pictures of which are given by Keane.

"Christians were very partial to the fish, but indeed, may be said to have carried on freely all the ancient ideas, as which faith has not after its first attempt at purification? On Christian tombs especially do fish abound, commonly crossed, which reminds us that crossed serpents denote their act of intercourse, and in this symbolism the fish would be very natural and usual, because denoting new life in death. Derceto, the half-fish and half-woman of the temple of the Dea Syria at Hira, was, says Lucian, the perfection of woman; she was the mystic Oanes, Athor, and Venus, whom Egyptians have handed down to us embalmed.

"So the Fathers of the Church have called their flocks Pisciculi, and their high-priest a fisherman; and have given to all cardinals and bishops the fish-head of Dagon.

"The fish is universally worshipped in all lands as the most fecundative of all creatures; and where most valued, the superstitious have offered it in sacrifice to their gods refusing to eat it. Many a time have I travelled through a poor and barren country where it was all mankind could do to live, and seen rivers and lakes teeming with fine fish which I dared not touch, or only so by stealth as night came on, much to the annoyance of my followers and myself, and the detriment of the people.

"Dion Cassius says the Caledonians never taste fish, although their lakes and rivers furnish an inexhaustible supply. Two 'holie fishes' in the seventeenth century occupied a well near the church of Kilmore in Argyleshire. They were black--never changed colour--neither increased in number nor in size in the memory of the most aged. The people believed that no others existed anywhere. Mr. Martin, in his 'Western Isles,' describes the ceremonies practised by invalids who came to be cured by the waters of a well at Loch Saint, in the Isle of Skye. They drank the water and then moved round the well deasil , and before departing left an offering on the stone. Martin adds that no one would venture to kill any of the fish in Loch Saint, or to cut as much as a twig from an adjacent copse. These customs practised in the end of the seventeenth century, have apparently reference to the worship of the sun, the fountain, the fish, and the oak.

"The absence of any allusion to the art of catching fish has been used as an argument in support of the authenticity of the poem of Ossian, as well as being corroborative of the statement of Dion Cassius. Fish-eaters was one of the contemptuous epithets which the Scottish Celt applied to the Saxon and other races that settled in the Lowlands of Scotland, and the remains of the superstitious veneration of fish, or rather abstaining from fish as an article of food, is registered by the author of 'Caledonia' as influencing the more purely Celtic portions of the British population in the early part of the present century.

"Ancient nations that did not eat but worshipped the fish were the Syrians, Phoenicians, and Celts. But in Caufiristaun, in the remote parts of the Hindu-Cosh, the Caufirs will not eat fish, although it is not said that they worship it. They believe in one great god, but have numerous idols that represent those who were once men and women. A plain stone, about four feet high, represents God, whose shape they say they do not know. One of their tribes call God Dagon. The fish-god and goddess of the Phoenicians were called Dago and Derceto; the worship of Dagon being more particularly celebrated at Gaza and Ashdod; that of Derceto at Ascalon."

"The old sculptures and gems of Babylon and Assyria furnish sufficient proof of the worship of Fertility, but writers and readers have alike lost the key, or purposely skipped the subject, and this we have a prominent example of in the case of the beautiful Assyrian cylinder, exhibiting the worship of the Fish God, which Mr. Rawlinson gives us without a comment. There we see the mitred man-god with rod and basket adoring the solar Fructifier, hovering over the fruitful tree from which spring thirteen full buds, whilst behind him stands another adoring winged deity backed by a star, a dove, and a yoni. On the opposite side of the Tree of Life is fire, and another man in the act of adoration, probably the Priest of God, pleading with both hands open, that the requests of the other two figures may be granted."

"Why?" asked a writer some years ago, "why is it that every eye kindles with delight at the sight of beautiful flowers? that in all lands, and amidst all nations, the love of flowers appears to prevail to so great an extent, that no home is considered complete without them--no festival duly honoured unless they decorate the place where it is observed? They are strewn in the path of the bride; they are laid on the bier of the dead; the merry-maker selects from the floral tribes the emblem of his joy; and the mourner the insignia of his grief. Everywhere and under all circumstances, flowers are eagerly sought after and affectionately cherished; and when the living and growing are not to be obtained, then is their place filled by some substitute or other, according to the circumstances or taste of the wearer; but whether that substitute be a wreath of gorgeous gems for the brow of royalty, or a bunch of coloured cambric for the adornment of a servant girl, it is usually wrought into the form of flowers.

"This taste depends not on wealth or on education, but is given, if not to all individuals, yet to some of every class. From the infant's first gleam of intelligence, a flower will suffice to still its cries; and even in old age the mind which has not been perverted from its natural instincts, can find a calm and soothing pleasure in the contemplation of these gems of creation."

A man, reputed wise, was once asked in a garden: "do you like flowers?" "No," said he; "I seldom find time to descend to the little things." "This man," said an American writer, "betrayed a descent, in his speech, to the pithole of ignorance. Flowers, sweet flowers! he that loves them not should be classed with the man that hath not music in his soul, as a dangerous member of the community."

The adoration of flowers is one of the most ancient systems of worship with which we are acquainted. It can be traced back for ages amongst the Hindus, who believing that the human soul is a spark or emanation from the Great Supreme, held that this essence can only be renovated in man by a communion with his works; it is found amongst the Chinese, it occupied a most important position in the mysteries of Egyptian idolatry, it figures prominently on the past and present monuments of Mexico, and to some extent prevailed in Europe. Naturally enough, it arose in the warmer regions of the earth, where the vegetable productions of the tropics are so much more gorgeous in their colouring and noble in their growth, and in those regions it still lingers, after having been swept away in other lands before the advance of education and a more intellectual religion.

It would be interesting did space allow to enumerate some of the myths and legends connected with flowers, but as we have another object in view these must be allowed to pass with a mere cursory allusion. There is the Flos Adonis which perpetuates the memory of Venus's favourite, Adonis, the son of Myrrha, who was herself said to be turned into a tree called myrrh. Adonis had often been warned by Venus not to hunt wild beasts; but disregarding her advice, he was at last killed by a wild boar and was then changed by his mistress into this flower. There was Narcissus, too, destroying himself in trying to grasp his form when reflected in the water by whose margin he was reclining. Then we have Myrtillus and the Myrtle. The father of Hippodamia declared that no one should marry his daughter who could not conquer him in a chariot race; and one of the lovers of the young lady bribed Myrtillus, who was an attendant of OEnoma?s, to take out the linchpin from his master's chariot, by which means the master was killed; and Myrtillus, repenting when he saw him dead, cast himself into the sea, and was afterwards changed by Mercury into the myrtle.

A bladder campion is another curiosity. Ancient writers say that it was formerly a youth named Campion, whom Minerva employed to catch flies for her owls to eat during the day, when their eyes did not serve them to catch food for themselves; but Campion indulging himself with a nap when he ought to have been busy at his task, the angry goddess changed him into this flower, which still retains in its form the bladders in which Campion kept his flies, and droops its head at night when owls fly abroad and have their eyes about them.

The common clover which was much used in ancient Greek festivals, was regarded by the Germans as sacred, chiefly in its four leaved variety. There is indeed, in the vicinity of Altenburg, a superstition that if a farmer takes home with him a handful of clover taken from each of the four corners of his neighbour's field it will go well with his cattle during the whole year; but the normal belief is that the four-leaved clover, on account of its cross form, is endowed with magical virtues. The general form of the superstition is that one who carries it about with him will be successful at play, and will be able to detect the proximity of evil spirits. In Bohemia it is said that if the maiden manages to put it into the shoe of her lover without knowledge when he is going on any journey, he will be sure to return to her faithfully and safely. In the Tyrol the lover puts it under the pillow to dream of the beloved. On Christmas Eve, especially, one who has it may see witches. Plucked with a gloved hand and taken into the house of a lunatic without anyone else perceiving it, it is said to cure madness. In Ireland also it is deemed sacred and has been immortalized in Lover's beautiful song as a safeguard against every imaginable kind of sorrow and misfortune.

It was a belief among the Jews, according to Zoroaster says Howitt, that every flower is appropriated to a particular angel, and that the hundred-leaved rose is consecrated to an archangel of the highest order. The same author relates that the Persian fire-worshippers believe that Abraham was thrown into a furnace by Nimrod, and the flames forthwith turned into a bed of roses.

In contradistinction to this in sentiment is the belief of the Turk, who holds that this lovely flower springs from the perspiration of Mohammed, and, in accordance with this creed, they never tread upon it or suffer one to lie upon the ground.

"Of shrub or flower worship, the most important in the east and south has been that of the lily species. The lily of October--the saffron--was very sacred to the Karnean, or horned Apollo--that is, the sun--for horns usually stand for rays of glory, as in the case of the horned Moses of our poets, artists and ecclesiastics, who make him like an Apis of Egypt, because of the text which says, 'his face shone' when he came down from the mountain. All lilies have more or less to do with the female or fecundating energies, and so even in Europe we have many stories of the crocus species, because it is said 'of their irradiating light, having peculiar looking bells, three-headed and crested capillaments, three cells, and reddish seeds,' &c.

Those who remember the Indian mutiny of the year 1867 and the long tale of horrors which overwhelmed the British dominions with grief, dismay and indignation, will be interested by the information that the conspiracy was first manifested by the circulation of symbols in the forms of cakes and lotus flowers. Commenting upon this, a writer in "Household Words," of September, 1857, said, after he had given a description and historical account of the flower: I fear I may have indulged in too long an excursion into the realms of botany to suit the reader, who merely wishes to know why the Indian rebels choose lotus flowers as symbols of cospiracy. I am sure I am as innocent of the knowledge as of the rebellion, but I will try to help my readers to a guess. Four-fifths of the human species worship a God-woman; and the vestiges of this worship are found in the most ancient monuments, documents and traditions, stretching backwards into the past eternity from millenium to millenium, towards an epoch beyond the records of the Deluge, and almost coeval with the loss of Eden. The Tentyrian planisphere of the ancient Egyptians represents the virgin and child rising out of a lotus flower. The Egyptian hieroglyphics depict the goddess Asteria, or Justice, issuing out of a lotus, and seating herself upon the centre of the beam of Libra, or the Scales. Pictorial delineations of the judgment of the dead, represent Osiris as Ameuti, swathed in the white garments of the grave, girt with a red girdle, and seated upon a chequered throne of white and black spots, or good and evil. Before him are the vase of nectar, the table of ambrosia, the great serpent, and the lotus of knowledge--the emblems of Paradise. There are Egyptian altar-pieces upon which the lotus figures as the tree of life. The Hindu priests say that the lotus rising out of the lakes is the type of the world issuing out of the ocean of time.

Travellers who have observed the worship of the Hindus and Parsees, tell us that they give religious honours to the lotus. The Budhist priests cultivate it in precious vases, and place it in their temples. The Chinese poets celebrate the sacred bean of India, out of which their god Amida and her child arose, in the middle of a lake. We can be at no loss to imagine the appearance of the Budhist pagodas, for our Gothic cathedrals are just those pagodas imitated in stone. Their pillars copy the trunks of the palm-trees and the effects of the creeping plants of the pagodas; their heaven piercing spires are the golden spathes of palm flowers, and the stained glass reproduces, feebly, the many brilliances of the tropical skies. Every pious Buddist, giving himself up to devout meditations, repeats as often as he can, the words "On ma ni bat mo Klom." When many worshippers are kneeling and repeating the sound, the effect is like counter-bass or the humming of bees; and profound sighs mingle with the repetitions. The Mongolian priests say these words are endowed with mysterious and supernatural powers; they increase the virtues of the faithful; they bring them nearer to divine protection, and they exempt them from the pains of the future life. When the priests are asked to explain the words, they say volumes would be required to tell all their meanings. Klaproth, however, says that the formula is nothing but a corruption of four Hindu words, "Om man'i padma houm," signifying "Oh! precious lotus!" Without pretending that the volume of the Hindu fakirs on the signification of the lotus, might not throw more light upon the use of it as a symbol of conspiracy, there are hints enough in the facts I have stated to warrant the conclusion that it serves as a sign of a great and general rising on behalf of Budhism. The flower was circulated to rally the votaries of the goddess of the lotus.

"In the first instance, it is perfectly clear that the Lotos of Homer, which Ulysses discovered, and which is alluded to in the ninth book of the 'Odyssey,' is quite distinct from any of the rest. It is the fruit of this tree to which interest attaches, and not to the flower as in some others--this is the arborescent Lotos.

"The second Lotos may be designated as the Sacred Lotos, or Lotos of the Nile. It is the one which figures so conspicuously on the monuments, enters so largely into the decoration, and seems to have been interwoven with the religious faith of the Ancient Egyptians. This Lotos is mentioned by Herodotus, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Athenaeus as an herbaceous plant of aquatic habits, and from their combined description, it seems evident that some kind of water-lily is intended. Herodotus says:--'When the river is full, and the plains are inundated, there grow in the water numbers of lilies which the Egyptians call Lotos.' Theophrastus says:--'The Lotos, so called, grows chiefly in the plains when the country is inundated. The flower is white, the petals are narrow, as those of the lily, and numerous, as of a very double flower. When the sun sets they cover the seed-vessel, and as soon as the sun rises the flowers open, and appear above the water; and this is repeated until the seed-vessel is ripe and the petals fall off. It is said that in the Euphrates both the seed-vessel and the petals sink down into the water from the evening until midnight to a great depth, so that the hand cannot reach them; at daybreak they emerge, and as day comes on they rise above the water; at sunrise the flowers open, and when fully expanded they rise up still higher, and present the appearance of a very double flower.' Dioscorides says:--'The Lotos which grows in Egypt, in the water of the inundated plains, has a stem like that of the Egyptian bean. The flower is small and white like the lily, which is said to expand at sunrise, and to close at sunset. It is also said that the seed-vessel is then entirely hid in the water, and that at sunrise it emerges again.' Athenaeus states that they grow in the lakes in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and blossom in the heat of summer. He also mentions a rose-coloured and a blue variety. 'I know that in that fine city they have a crown called Antinoean, made of the plant which is there named Lotos, which plant grows in the lakes in the heat of summer, and there are two colours of it; one of them is the colour of a rose, of which the Antinoean crown is made; the other is called Lotinos, and has a blue flower.'"

After quoting a number of other descriptions from these authors, the writer proceeds:--"From these descriptions it is evident that the Sacred Lotos of the Nile, the Egyptian Lotos of the ancients, was a species of Nymphoea, common in the waters of that river. Plants, and animals also, submit so much to external circumstances, that the lapse of centuries may eradicate them from spots on which they were at one time common. It by no means follows that the same plants will be found flourishing in the Nile now, that were common under the Pharaohs; but, when the French invaded Egypt in 1798, Savigny brought home from the Delta a blue Nymphoea, which was figured in the 'Annales du Museum,' corresponding very closely in habit to the conventional Lotos so common on the Egyptian monuments.

"It seems to be very probable that the Lotos-flower in the hands of the guests at Egyptian banquets, and those presented as offerings to the deities, were fragrant. The manner in which they are held strengthens this probability, as there is no other reason why they should be brought into such close proximity with the nose.

"There is still a third Lotos mentioned by Dioscorides, Theocritus, and Homer, which may be some species of Medicago or of the modern genus Lotos. It is herbaceous, sometimes wild, and sometimes cultivated; but always written about as though constituting herbage, and is on one occasion cropt by the horses of Achilles. We shall not pause to identify this plant, but proceed at once to the last plant it is our design to deal with.

"The Kyamos, or Indian Lotos. This can scarcely claim to be one of the kinds of Lotos mentioned by the ancients, since it is distinctly alluded to by them as the Egyptian bean, or Kyamos. This plant among the Hindus has a sacred character, equal to that of the Lotus among the Egyptians. It was doubtless Asiatic in its origin, but at one time was plentiful in Egypt, whence it has now totally vanished. It is represented on the Egyptian monuments, but far less common than the Sacred Lotos. Some authors declare this to be the veritable 'Sacred Lotos of Egypt,' a title to which it has no claim. Herodotus, after describing the Lotos, adds--'There are likewise other lilies, like roses whose fructification is produced in a separate seed-vessel, springing like a sucker from the root, in appearance exactly resembling a wasp's nest and containing a number of esculent seeds, about the size of olive-berries. These are also eaten when tender and dry.

"Theophrastus describing this plant, says:--'It is produced in marshes and in stagnant waters; the length of the stem, at the longest, four cubits, and the thickness of a finger, like the smooth jointless reed. The inner texture of the stem is perforated throughout like a honey-comb, and upon the top of it is a poppy-like seed-vessel, in circumference and appearance like a wasp's nest. In each of the cells there is a bean projecting a little above the surface of the seed-vessel, which usually contains about thirty of these beans or seeds. The flower is twice the size of a poppy, of the colour of a full-blown rose, and elevated above the water; about each flower are produced large leaves of the size of a Thessalian hat, having the same kind of stem as the flower-stem. In each bean when broken may be seen the embryo plant, out of which the leaf grows. So much for the fruit. The root is thicker than the thickest reed, and cellular like the stem; and those who live about the marshes eat it as food, either raw, or boiled, or roasted. These plants are produced spontaneously, but they are cultivated in beds. To make these bean-beds, the beans are sown in the mud, being previously mixed up carefully with chaff, so that they may remain without injury till they take root, after which the plant is safe. The root is strong, and not unlike that of the reed; the stem is also similar, except that it is full of prickles, and therefore the crocodiles, which do not see very well, avoid the plant, for fear of running the prickles into their eyes."

Major Drury observes that the mode of sowing the seeds, is by first enclosing them in balls of clay, and then throwing them into the water. Sir James Smith says that in process of time the receptacle separates from the stalk, and, laden with ripe oval nuts, floats down the water. The nuts vegetating, it becomes a cornucopoeia of young sprouting plants, which at length break loose from their confinement, and take root in the mud.

After comparing these and other accounts, the author of the paper urges that there is no room for doubt that this is the plant which was known to the ancients as the Kyamos or Egyptian bean, the Tamara of modern India.

"The beans and flower stalks of this plant abound in spiral tubes, which are extracted with great care by gently breaking the stems and drawing apart the ends; with these filaments are prepared those wicks which are burnt by the Hindoos in the lamps placed before the shrines of their gods. In India, as well as in China and Ceylon, the flowers are held to be specially sacred."

Sir William Jones says:--"The Thibetans embellish their temples and altars with it, and a native of Nepaul made prostration before it on entering my study, where the fine plant and beautiful flowers lay for examination."

"Thunberg affirms that the Japanese regard the plant as pleasing to the gods, the images of their idols being often represented sitting on its large leaves. In China, the Shing-moo or Holy Mother is generally represented with a flower of it in her hand, and few temples are without some representation of the plant.

"According to Chinese mythology, Shing-moo bore a son, while she was a virgin, by eating the seeds of this plant, which lay upon her clothes on the bank of a river where she was bathing. In the course of time she returned to the same place, and was there delivered of a boy. The infant was afterwards found and educated by a poor fisherman, and in process of time became a great man and performed miracles. When Shing-moo is represented standing, she generally holds a flower in her hand; when she is sitting, she is usually placed upon one of its leaves."

The Lotos is held in the highest veneration in India, inclusive of Thibet and Nepaul. Amongst the Brahmans and enthusiastic Hindoos, no object in nature is looked on with more superstition; and their books abound in mystical allusions to this lovely aquatic. Being esteemed the most beautiful of vegetables, it not unappropriately furnishes a name for the Hindoo queen of beauty, and Kamal or Kamala is a name of Lakshmi: as is Padma or Pedma, another Sanscrit appellation for both. Under the form of Kamala, Lakshmi is usually represented with a Lotos in her hand, and in most pictures and statues of her consort Vishnu, he is furnished with the Pedma, or Lotus bud, in one of his four hands, as a distinguishing attribute. Accordingly, as it is represented in different stages of efflorescence, it varies, in the eyes of mystics, its emblematical allusions. As an aquatic, the Lotos is a symbol also of Vishnu, he being a personification of water or humidity, and he is often represented seated on it. Brahma the creative power, is also sometimes seated on the Lotos, and is borne on its calyx in the whimsical representation of the renovation of the world, when this mystical plant issued out of the navel of Vishnu from the bottom of the sea where he was reposing on the serpent Lesha.

Lakshmi and Bhavani are both considered queens of beauty, and their characters are said to "melt into each other." Lakshmi being commonly seen with a Kamal or Lotos, the emblem of female beauty, in her hand, she is called Kamala: the word is by some--by Sir W. Jones, indeed, in his earlier lucubrations on Hindu mythology, spelled Kemel. In his profound and spirited hymn to Narayana, which every inquirer into its subject would do well to consult with attention, that deity, a personification of the Spirit of Brahme, as "he heavenly pensive on the Lotus lay," said to Brahma, "Go; bid all the worlds exist!" and the Lotus is thus apostrophised:--

"Hail, primal blossom! hail, empyreal gem! Kemel, or Pedma, or whate'er high name Delight thee; say, what four-formed Godhead came, With graceful stole, and bearing diadem, Forth from thy verdant stem?-- Full-gifted Brahma."

The following extract from the "Loves of Krishna and Radha" shews the deep poetic sentiment associated with flowers, and especially with the Lotos. Krishna, afflicted by the jealous anger of Radha, exclaims--

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