Map

plant

Lotus

Nature · Symbols

A water plant. Egyptian funerary art, Indian padma, and later Theosophical “lotus” talk are different jobs; they do not share one meaning.

Also known as padma · water lily

Egyptian religion · Nile valley

Buddhist traditions

  • Lotus appears in Buddhist traditions.

    Indian padma and later Buddhist lotus imagery are another plant-job: purity and a seat of teaching. Not the Egyptian funerary bloom.

    from Burton Watson (translation) · The Lotus Sutra, 1993 (this translation); Sanskrit/Chinese recensions much older

    appears in · sourced · documented

  • Lotus is associated with Buddha.

    The Lotus Sutra uses the flower as the sūtra’s own image of teaching. A Mahāyāna text, not an Egyptian tomb.

    from Burton Watson (translation) · The Lotus Sutra, 1993 (this translation); Sanskrit/Chinese recensions much older

    associated with · sourced · documented

  • Lotus appears in Book.

    The Lotus Sutra is a book that uses the flower as its name-image. A sūtra, not an Egyptian papyrus.

    from Burton Watson (translation) · The Lotus Sutra, 1993 (this translation); Sanskrit/Chinese recensions much older

    appears in · sourced · documented

Roman religion

  • Lotus appears in Roman religion.

    Pliny’s Natural History seats lotus among Egyptian and Mediterranean water plants known to Roman encyclopedic speech. A named lotus in that encyclopedia, not the Book of the Dead or Lotus Sūtra seats already walked and not a modern pond dump.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Hellenic religion

  • Lotus appears in Hellenic religion.

    Ovid’s Metamorphoses seats the lotus among Lotis’s flight-into-plant and Dryope’s lotus fate. A named lotus metamorphosis in that poem, not Egyptian blue-lotus dumps alone and not Odyssey lotus-eaters (Odyssey not in atlasSources).

    from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Egyptian religion

  • Lotus is sacred to Ra.

    The Book of the Dead’s solar birth speech seats the lotus as the flower from which the sun child rises — lotus sacred to Ra in that corpus, not lotus appears_in egyptian alone and not a rebirth represents twin filed here.

    from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

    sacred to · sourced · culturally specific

Vedic tradition

sources