"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 Narāyana 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]