Elements of Buddhist Iconography c4.46

c4.46

From the Tree of Life we turn to consider the Earth-Lotus. In Vedic formulation, the Tree of Life rises into Space from the navel-centre of deity recumbent on the back of the Waters, its trunk representing the axis of the Universe, its branches all extension and differentiation on whatever plane of being. By the time that Nārāyaṇa takes the place of Varuṇa reclining on the Waters at the dawn of a creative cycle, it is not a forest tree (*vanaspati*, often also a designation of Agni) that rises thus from the navel-centre of immortality, but a lotus. This lotus bears on its expanded flower the Father of the World, Lokapitā, Brahmā-Prajāpati, whose epithets are "navel-born" (*nābhija*), "lotus-born" (*abjaja, abja-yoni*), and "lotus-seated" (*kamalāsana, padmāsana*), while the recumbent Nārāyaṇa is "lotus-navelled" (*padmanābha, puṣkaranābha*) (Fig. B). Corresponding descriptions of this "Birth of Brahmā" appear only in "late" books of the Epic, and corresponding representations in art not before the fifth or sixth century A.D.,²⁷ the archaeological data thus indicating a formulation not much before the Gupta period, though, as will presently appear, the motif is really Vedic. In some remarkable Burmese representations (Fig. 16), the one stem rising from the navel of the recumbent Nārāyaṇa bears on three flowers the Trinity of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva.²⁸ It would seem at first sight as though the tree of the earlier texts had later been interpreted or misinterpreted to be a lotus. The concept of the Lotus-birth of manifested creative deity is, however, coeval with that of the Tree of Life: and furthermore, a clear distinction of significance is made as between the Tree and the Lotus, the former being, as we have seen, "all existences," viz. "that which" is manifest, the latter "that wherein" or "that whereon" there is and can be manifestation. For "this lotus (of the heart, *hṛt-puṣkara*) is verily the same as Space (*ākāśa*); these four quarters and four interquarters are its surrounding petals,"²⁹ *Maitri Up.*, VI, 2, cf. *Chāndogya Up.*, VIII, 1–3; and it rises appropriately from the navel-centre since "the navel (*nābhi*) of Prājapati's world-form is the Firmament," *Maitri Up.*, VI, 6. Again the Lotus is explained to be the Earth, any one plane of being, that whereon and whereby existence is supported, *Taittirīya Saṃhitā*, IV, 1, 3, and IV, 2, 8, and *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, VII, 4, 1, 8. Or considered as a receptacle as implied in the expressions *padma-garbha, padma-kośa*, then "in this Space (*ākāśa*), coextensive (*yāvān . . . tāvān*) with Space-in-the-Heart (*antar-hṛdayākāśa*), are contained both Heaven and Earth . . . all is contained therein," *Chāndogya Up.*, VIII, 1, 3.