THE FLOWER OF THE TRINITY 231 



patience, and in every age and country the 

 pioneers and early masters of the craft have 

 been religious teachers and monks. The Hindus 

 and Buddhists, with their wide sympathies and 

 their simple, joyous love of nature, made much 

 use of flowers in their religious ritual. Their 

 monks and missioners travelled far and wide, 

 and with them the Lotus of the Good Law went 

 voyaging into many lands. What the mihrab, 

 Allah as a spirit, invisible, intangible, is to the 

 Mohammedans, the Cross of Redemption to the 

 Christians, the Lotus is to the Buddhist and 

 Hindu. A lotus floating on the cosmic waters 

 is the symbol of the creation of the world. 

 Three species of the flower grow in India : the 

 Nymphcea Lotus, the white Lotus of ancient 

 Egypt ; the Nymphcea caerulea, the blue species ; 

 and the Nelumbium speciosum, the rose-coloured 

 or sacred Lotus of India, which, Professor Joret 

 believes, only entered Egypt in the times of the 

 Ptolemies. Each colour is sacred to one aspect 

 of the Trinity : the rose-petaled lotus that of 

 the Dal Lake is the flower of sunrise, Brahma's 

 prayer ; the blue flower is sacred to Vishnu, 

 upholder of the blue noontide universe ; the 

 white lotus of evening is the flower of death and 



