what does Bamboo mean but constancy! And what will lovers wish for but the continuance of their love!
But the Bamboo is also associated with the ‘religious plants,’ and Mr. Percival Lowell in his absorbingly interesting book, Occult Japan, never omits to mention that the ‘eight points’ in the sacred space made for the Shinto rites of spirit possession are marked by Bamboo wands, with the leaves left at the top in tufts.
About the Lotus flower a wealth of mystic lore has accumulated, for it is the emblem of Buddha, and its very prayer is “Oh, the jewel in the Lotus!” (Om Mani Padmi Hum). The blooms outspread, like the sun’s rays, are emblems of Buddha’s enlightenment, and the spokes marked on the top of the seed-pod denote the wheel of Eternity. In the ponds of every temple the plants may be found springing—a lovely token of purity, spotless and unsoiled—from the mud of their miry bed. Once this symbolized the spiritual triumph of the body over the debasing and polluting acts of birth and of death; but now it is no more associated with the new life, I suppose because it is too favourite an emblem of death. At funerals Lotus flowers of gold and silver paper are carried, and real flowers, if obtainable, are set in the bamboo flower-holders on the graves. At the Bon, the ‘Festival of the Dead,’ the food
