The following is an account given of it by Payne Knight, in his curious dissertation on Phallic Worship:—“The Lotus is the Nelumbo of Linnæus. This plant grows in the water, among its broad leaves puts forth a flower, in the centre of which is formed the seed vessel, shaped like a bell or inverted cone, and perforated on the top with little cavities or cells, in which the seeds grow. The orifices of these cells being too small to let the seeds drop out when ripe, they shoot forth into new plants in the places where they are formed: the bulb of the vessel serving as a matrix to nourish them, until they acquire such a degree of magnitude as to burst it open and release themselves, after which, like other aquatic weeds, they take root wherever the current deposits them. This plant, therefore, being thus productive of itself, and vegetating from its own matrix, without being fostered in the earth, was naturally adopted as the symbol of the productive power of the waters, upon which the active spirit of the Creator operated in giving life and vegetation, to matter. We accordingly find it employed in every part of the northern hemisphere, where the symbolical religion, _improperly called idolatry_, does or ever did prevail. The sacred images of the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians are almost placed upon it, of which numerous instances occur in the publications of Kœmpfer, Sonnerat, etc. The Brahma of India is represented as sitting upon his Lotus throne, and the figure upon the Isaaic table holds the stem of this plant surmounted by the seed vessel in one hand, and the Cross representing the male organs of generation in the other; thus signifying the universal power, both active and passive, attributed to that goddess.” Nimrod says:—“The Lotus is a well-known allegory, of which the expansive calyx represents the ship of the gods floating on the surface of the water; and the erect flower arising out of it, the mast thereof. The one was the galley or cockboat, and the other the mast of cockayne; but as the ship was Isis or Magna Mater, the female principle, and the mast in it the male deity, these parts of the flower came to have certain other significations, which seem to have been as well known at Samosata as at Benares. This plant was also used in the sacred offices of the Jewish religion. In the ornaments of the temple of Solomon, the Lotus or lily is often seen.” The figure of Isis is frequently represented holding the stem of the plant in one hand, and the cross and circle in the other. Columns and capitals resembling the plant are still existing among the ruins of Thebes, in Egypt, and the island of Philœ. The Chinese goddess, Pussa, is represented sitting upon the Lotus, called in that country Lin, with many arms, having symbols signifying the various operations of nature, while similar attributes are expressed in the Scandinavian goddess Isa or Disa.