Universal Love of Flowers—Indifference to Flowers—Excessive Love of Flowers leading to Adoration—Myths and Legends connected with Flowers, the Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle, Silene inflata, Clover—The Hundred-leaved Rose—The Worship of the Lily Species—Signification of the Lotos—Hermaphroditic Character of the Lotos—The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played by the Lotos during its Instigation.

“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.”

Instead of not liking or not caring, leaving out, not loving flowers, the general tendency with humanity has been to run to an opposite extreme and render them not merely estimation, care or love, but veneration and worship.

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 ŒnomaÜs, 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 (Silene inflata) 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.

“The Lotus is the seat of most deities, but notably so of the creator Brahma, who, thus enthroned, is called the Kamal-a-yoni, or the great androgynous god. The lotus is the womb of all creation. It is said to originate from the great fertiliser, water, alone; and dropping its great leaves on this fertiliser as on a bed, it springs upwards with a slender, elegant stalk, and spreads forth in a lovely flower. Even the grave and mighty Vishnoo delights in the lotus, which is one of the four emblems he holds in his fourfold arms. It is Venus’ sacred flower.

“The flower is shaped like a boat, is a representation of divinity, and is shown as springing from the navel of the great god resting on his milky sea. It always signifies fecundation. Inman, under the head Nabhi, navel, says—‘The germ is “Meroo” (the highest pinnacle of the earth), the petals and filaments are the mountains which encircle Meroo, a type of the Yoni,’ and Sanscrit for mons veneris. Amongst fourteen kinds of fruit and flowers which must be presented to ‘Ananta’ (Sanskrit, eternity), the lotus is the only indispensable one, as he (Ananta) is then worshipped in the form of a mighty serpent with seven heads.

“Hindoo and other writers often tell us that the lotus originated the idea of the triangle, which is ‘the first of perfect figures, for two lines are an imperfection,’ and the lotus also gives us a circle on a triangle which is full of cells and seed, and so is more perfect still. Siva is, as Orientals know, ‘the god of the triangle,’ and hence, in his palace in Kailasa we are told the most precious object ‘on his table of nine precious stones is the padma (lotus), carrying in its bosom the triangle, as origin and source of all things;’ and that from ‘this triangle issues the Lingam, the eternal god who makes in it his eternal dwelling;’ which, however, is not quite correct on the part of M. Guigniant, whom Mr. Barlow quotes. The lotus is an inverted triangle, and is therefore the female sign; the pyramid or triangle on base is Siva, or the Ray of Light, the sun-god.

“Another reason why the lotus is in all lands so sacred is its androgynous or hermaphrodite character, a feature imperative in the case of all the great gods of man, though this is not very clear if we dive deeply below the surface, either in the case of the Jewish Elohim or the lotus. Brahma, the creator, whilst sitting on the lotus, as all great gods do, desired, says the ‘Hindoo Inspired Word,’ to create the universe, and for this purpose, became androgynous, or a breathing-spirit (Ruach?)—prakriti or nature; when creation at once commenced and progressed, much as we have it in the genesis of most faiths. The details of this mystic plant have much exercised all Asiatic and Egyptian minds. In its circular stamina it shows two equilateral triangles placed across each other, which Sanskritists call the shristi-chakra, also sixteen petals called the shoodasa; and this, it is held, is a revelation from the deity as to the proper age for the representative woman or prakriti, in the Sakti ceremonies. These triangles, with apex upwards and downwards, are the chapel or magic diagram which the pious are told to ponder over, for it has many significations and possesses numerous spells; and hence we see it venerated in all early ages, and still an important article of Freemasonry. The spells go by the name of the devi-chakrams, or godesses of circles, no doubt having a solar signification.

“The Padma and Kamalata or Granter-of-Desires, or ‘Consummator-of-our-Wishes,’ are all terms applied to the lotus. It is the symbol of Venus or Lakshmi, or of her incarnation—Krishna’s wife, Padha, who is commonly a nude Venus or Sakti. It is also called ‘love’s creeper,’ the throne and ark of the gods, and the water-born one. One author writes, that from far Thibet to Ceylon, and over every eastern land and islet, the holy Padma is only a little less sacred than the Queen of Heaven—Juno (I Oni) herself. It is as mysterious as the Yoni—is, like it, the flower of concealment, of night and of silence, and that mysteriousness of generation and reproduction; it is described as a sort of incomprehensible dualism which veils the Almighty One and his mysteries from our minds. LinnÆus tells us it is the Nelumbo, but R. Payne Knight is clearer when he writes to this effect. The flowers of the lotus contain a seed vessel shaped like an inverted cone or bell, which are very holy symbols with all peoples, and representative male and female. This inverted bell is punctuated on the top with little cavities or cells in which the seeds grow as in a matrix fed by the parent plant till they arrive at such a size as to break open ‘the ark boat of life.’ They then emerge and float away, taking root wherever they find ground, and throwing down long tentacles or tendrills in quest of it. The idea is expressed by Brahma in his address to the angels, as given in the Linga-Pooran, beginning: ‘When I sprang into existence, I beheld the mighty Narayana reposing on the abyss of waters;’ which reminds us of the Jewish Elohim-god who it is said generated all things ‘by brooding o’er the deep.’”[18]

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.