102 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
universe, submerged in water, reposed on the 
bosom of the Eternal. Brahma, the architect 
of the world, poised on a Lotus-leaf, floated 
upon the waters, and all that he was able to 
discern with his eight eyes was water and dark- 
ness. Amid scenes so ungenial and dismal, 
the god sank into a profound reverie, when he 
thus soliloquized: ‘Who am I? Whence am 
I?’ In this state of abstraction Brahma con- 
tinued during the period of a century and a 
half of the gods, without apparent benefit or 
a solution of his inquiries,—a circumstance 
which caused him great uneasiness of mind.” 
It is a comfort, however, to know that subse- 
quently a voice came to him, on which he rose, 
“seated himself upon the Lotus in an attitude 
of contemplation, and reflected upon the Eter- 
nal, who soon appeared to him in the form of a 
man with a thousand heads,” —a questionable 
exchange for his Lotus-solitude. 
This is Brahminism ; but the other great form 
of Oriental religion has carried the same fair 
symbol with it. One of the Bibles of the Bud- 
dhists is named “ The White Lotus of the Good 
Law.” A pious Nepaulese bowed in reverence 
before a vase of lilies which perfumed the study 
‘of Sir William Jones. At sunset in Thibet, 
the French missionaries tell us, every inhabit- 
ant of every village prostrates himself in the 
