The Lotus Symbol in Indian Literature and Art

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Seeing the profusion of the lotus flower in the ancient Indian art as seats of the divinities, of the Buddha and as decorative motifs one of the questions that bugs the mind of the viewers may be formulated thus:

Is the lotus flower in Indian art an end in itself, or does it symbolize an assortment of thoughts and conceptions when associated with the deities?

The Lotus Symbol in Indian Literature and Art attempts to answer some of the queries regarding the symbolical meanings of the lotus flower. The quest for finding the root cause of this preference starts from the earliest books of the Indian literature, viz., the Vedas.

To the Vedic people the lotus flower was a supernatural object and to give their supposition an aura of mystery myths were woven regarding its origin. The lotus flower came to be connected with gods and goddesses, with the theory of Creation and in this process different symbolical meanings were attached to it.

This trend pursues in the Buddhist art also. The Buddha is always shown as sitting or standing on an open lotus, a direct legacy from the Vedic period. But in the Buddhist period lotus plant with its flowers and leaves became predominantly a symbol of non-attachment to the worldly things.

Santona Basu (1938) did her post- graduation in Sanskrit from Agra University in 1959. Her second rank in the university got her UGE fellowship. This was followed by a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which enabled her to study Indology at Goettingen University from 1961-1964. She did her Ph.D. from Agra University in 1974.

The same year she with her family again left India for Germany. This time she worked in the Bengali department of the Voice of Germany (Deutsche Welle), Cologne from 1974-1985 and as police and court interpreter for Bengali and German in Bonn as a freelance.

Besides English, Bengali and Hindi she is well versed in German language. To her credit she has multi-lingual publications. She has written articles in English and Bengali, translated Hindi and Bengali short stories into German and German short stories into Bengali.

In the year 1961 a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) enabled me to go to Germany for higher studies in Indology under the guidance of the late Prof Dr. E. Waldschmidt, the then Director of the Indologisches Seminar of Goettingen University. He suggested the topic regarding lotus flower in the ancient Indian literature, which was readily accepted by me, the reason being I was always intrigued by the abundance of this flower in visual art, particularly of ancient India. There most of the Hindu divinities and the Buddha have been allotted a lotus seat. Why? My quest for finding the root cause for the preferential treatment apportioned to lotus, started from the earliest of Indian literature viz. the Vedas and its subsequent books known as Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanisads and stretched to the books of Pali Canons for interpreting lotus in the Buddhist art. The result of the conclusion was my thesis, The Lotus in the Vedic and Canonical Pali Literature. This monograph is a revised and rearranged version of my thesis.

The present work, embracing the Vedic and Pali Canonical texts and sculptures, attempts to make understandable both to the students and general readers, how the ancient Indian mind visualised this water-born flower, reflections of which are contained in the ancient texts and plastic art.

An attempt has also been made to classify the common Sanskrit names of the lotus based on meagre scientific data that could be gleaned from the literary works of the classical Sanskrit period.