Nymphaea lotus Coptic flag. Claire Waight Keller included the flower to represent Malawi in Meghan Markle's wedding veil, which included the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country. In some parts of Africa the rhizomes and tubers are eaten for the starch they contain either boiled, roasted or ground to a flour after drying. The young fruits are sometimes consumed as a salad. The seeds are turned into a meal. The tubers or the seeds are used as a famine food in India. The ancient Egyptians cultivated the white lotus in ponds and marshes. This flower often appears in ancient Egyptian decorations. They
Lotus Sutra Kumārajīva relied heavily on the earlier version. The Sanskrit editions are not widely used outside of academia. In some Chinese and Japanese sources the Lotus Sūtra has been compiled together with two other sutras which serve as a prologue and epilogue, respectively the "Innumerable Meanings Sutra" ( ) and the "Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra" (, ). This composite sutra is often called the "Threefold Lotus Sūtra" or "Three-Part Dharma Flower Sutra" (, ). The first French translation of the Lotus Sūtra, based on a Nepalese Sanskrit manuscript, was published by Eugène Burnouf in 1852. Hendrik Kern completed his English translation of