When the lotus blooms

Brahma is born from the lotus which springs from Vishnu8217;s navel, the navel which is likened to the beauty of the lotus. This concept ha...

WHEN I was young, an elderly relative once told me that the lotus was the symbol of detachment, that the way it rose, calm and beautiful, untouched by its dark waters. And like it, I too must try, in the course of my life, and not to allow extreme thought and action to govern me. His words have always stayed with me and the lotus became a constantly renewable source of delight whenever I came upon it on my travels around India.

Over the years I have not been able to escape the fascination of the lotus as I came to realise how deeply it influenced Indian aesthetics, literature and philosophy and how it held similar kinds of meaning for Far Eastern cultures.

Literary references, which have often found parallels in visual images, compare the faces, eyes and feet of various gods and goddesses to the lotus which Lakshmi and Vishnu also held in their hands. Parvati8217;s beautiful face attracts bees that they mistake to be the flower, a rather hyperbolic image but expressive nonetheless. Brahma is born from the lotus which springs from Vishnu8217;s navel, the navel which is likened to the beauty of the lotus. This concept has been endlessly stylised in sculpture and in paintings.

Goddess Lakshmi stands on the lotus held up by only one stem with incredible balance. The flower symbolises equilibrium and balance and the movement away from all extremes. The sullied water through which it emerges in its pristine perfection is compared to saras, knowledge and wisdom.

Saraswati, the goddess of learning, clears the darkness of the mind the way the lotus clears away the water from which it emerges. Saraswati is depicted playing her veena on the banks of a lotus pond, at times seated on a white lotus. Buddha, too, is often shown seated on one.

In classical Indian literature holy men have also meditated by the side of these fragrant pools while lovers like Krishna and Radha dallied alongside their banks in the moonlight.

It is perhaps in the way the lotus emerges from its waters, in the beauty of this flower, its leaves and petals, in the many possibilities of stylisation and perspective that its form offers to the artist, and in the innumerable things that it symbolises that makes it such a powerful visual image. For centuries now, sculptors and painters have used the lotus obsessively, whether it is Sanchi, Ajanta, Sittanavasal or in so many parts of India, where it suddenly appears in its sculpted or painted representation. Its rich symbolism only further augments its hypnotic hold on the Indian mind, on our lives, culture and environment.