Lotus...........

Kamal कमल (Nelumbo nucifera) -- Lotus

The Lotus, the national flower of India, is a symbol of supreme reality. Hindu religion and mythology portray goddess Saraswathi, the muse of learning, as being seated on a lotus flower. To the Indian psyche, the lotus is more than a flower – it represents both beauty and non-attachment. There is a saying that although it grows in mud, it smells of myrrh. Toru Dutt in her sonnet “The Lotus” addresses the flower as the “queenliest flower that blows.”

The lotus grows in fresh water ponds and lakes and in semitropical climates. It blossoms gradually and magnificently – one petal at a time and reaches full bloom when the rays of the sun kiss the flower. There are innumerable poems praising the love between the sun and the flower in literature in general and Indian literature in particular. The lotus is found in different colours, namely, white, red, blue, pink, and purple and is found in many Asian countries.

The (red) lotus has pride of place in Indian literature. The national floweris another universal favourite of the Gods, and its beauty is often used in in similes for the beauty of heros/heroines: "face as beautiful as a blooming lotus" or "eyes shaped like lotus petals". A woman's beauty may be compared to that of a pond full of blooming lotuses (Nalinī, padminī) or her slender frame to that of a lotus stem. A famous couplet ascribed to Kalidasa describes a woman's face as a miracle of flower blooming within a flower: her beautiful eyes are like dark blue lotuses blooming in the pink lotus of her face!

The goddess Lakshmi sits on a red Lotus, and Sarasvati, on a white one. The Lotus is associated with Lord Brahma, who was created sitting on a lotus arising from the navel of Lord Vishnu. The lotus has esoteric and sacred significance in spirituality. The Mother Goddess (Devi) is called Kamalāmba or "Lotus Mother": she resides in a thousand-petalled lotus said to be located in the Sahasrāra Chakra in the head. Raising the serpent power kundalini to this place leads to Realization, which is the aim of the practitioners of "Sri Vidya Upasana". Lotus symbols are central in yantra patterns, and form part of many designs of decoration in more secular contexts. The lotus blooms at day and closes at night: so the sun is referred to as the "Friend of the Lotus".