57. Nelumbium speciosum, Willd. (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn.)

The medicinal plant Nelumbo nucifera is a member of the Nymphaeaceae (water lilies) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): 1. 116.
Roxb. 450.

Sanskrit:—Kamala (A lotus), sweta (white), Ambhoja (born from water), saraja (born from a lake), sarsiruha (growing in a lake), sahasrapatra (Thousand-leaved), srigeha (Abode of beauty), satapatra (Hundred-leaved), Pankeruha (growing in mud), Tamarasai (copper colour), Rajina (Lotus), Pushkaravah (Pushkara-named), Abja (born from water), Ambhoruha (born from water), Padma (A lotus), Pundarika (A lotus), Pankaja (born from mud), Nala (Lotus), Nalina (Lotus), Arvinda (Lotus), Mahotpala (great lotus).

Vernacular:—Kanwal (H.) (Kumaon), Padma (B.); Padam (Uriya); Besenda, Pabbin (N.-W. P.); Pamposb; Kanwal Kakri and bbe or phe (root), gatte (Seed) (Pb.); Pabban (plant), bbe root, Paduro (Seeds), Nilofar (drug) (Sind); Kungwelka-gudda (Dec.); Kamala-Kankadi (Bomb.); Tavarigadde; tavaribija (Kan.); Paud-Kanda (Poona); Shivapdutamara-ver, ambal (Tam.); Erra-tamara veru (Tel.); Tamara (Malay.). Tamarai (Tam.) Ceylon; Nelun (Sinhalese).

Habitat:—Throughout India, extending as far to the N. W.P. as Cashmir. Abundant in Bombay, Thana district, Ceylon, Persia, China, Japan, Malay Islands, Tropical Australia.

Botanical description:—An erect, large herb of still waters, extensively creeping. Root-stock stout, creeping.

Leaves: raised several feet high above water; peltate, 2-3 ft. diam., membranous glaucous, cupped.

Flowers: magnificent, rose-red or white, sweet-scented, 4-10 in. diam.

Peduncles: and petioles 3-6 ft. high, fall of spiral vessels, with stumpy, scattered prickles.

Sepals: 4-5, inserted on the top of the scape, caducous.

Petals: and stamens many, hypogynous, many-seriate, caducous, elliptic, concave, veined.

Anthers: adnate, with a clubbed appendage, produced beyond the anther-cells.

Ovaries: many, 1-celled, loose, sunk in a flat top of an obconic, spongy torus (not fleshy torus).

The torus or receptacle: 3-4 in. high, flat at top, 2-4 in. wide.

Style: short, exserted; stigma capitate.

Ripe carpel: seed-like, ½ in. long, ovoid, glabrous. This is fruit and seed at one and the same time; edible.

Pericarp: black, bony, smooth.

Albumen: absent, cotyledons fleshy, thick, enclosing the large green folded plumule.

Testa: spongy brown.

Hermann gives Nelumbo as the Singhalese name (Trirnen).

In Sanskrit, the white variety is called Pundarik; the pink is called Kokonad, and the blue variety is called Indivara. I have never come across this third blue variety in the Konkan or the Dekkan, but it has been mentioned by Pandit Jaya Krishna Indraji and Dr. Tribhuvandas M. Shah, in their respective works. The flowers of Nelumbium speciosum open at sunrise and close at sunset. Hence, they are called Surya-vikashi or Surya-Kamal; whereas Nymphoea stellata opens at sunset and closes at sunrise, and is hence called Chandra-vikashi (K. R. K.)

Note:—It is the ‘Lotus’ of the Europeans in the East; the Cyamus or ‘Sacred Bean’ of ancient Egypt, where it does not grow now (Trimen),

Parts used:—The filaments, seeds, leaves, and root.

Medicinal uses:— By Sanskrit authors, the filaments are considered astringent and cooling, useful in burning sensation of the body, bleeding piles and menorrhagia. In bleeding piles, the filaments of the lotus are given, with honey and fresh butter, or with sugar.

The large leaves are used as cool bedsheets, in high fever, with much heat and burning of the skin (Dutt’s Materia Medica of the Hindus). The seeds are used to check vomiting, and given to children as diuretic and refrigerant. The milky viscid juice of the leaf and flower stalks is used in diarrhoea. The petals are said to be slightly astringent.

The large root stalks are cut into 1 foot pieces, and sold under the name of Bhishi; they afford a cooling, refreshing dish, when cooked in milk or cocoanut juice, with salt or sugar.

A sherbet of this plant is used as refrigerant in small-pox, and is said to stop eruption; used also in all eruptive fevers. The root is used as a paste in ringworm and other cutaneous affections. (Dr. Emerson.)

The flowers are used as an astringent in diarrhoea, also cholera, in fever and diseases of the liver; and are also recommended as a cardiac tonic.

The powdered root is prescribed for piles as a demulcent; also for dysentery and dyspepsia,

The seeds form a cooling medicine for cutaneous diseases and leprosy, and are considered an antidote for poisons.