Lotus
The lotus flower, one of the eight auspicious symbols. Rooted in mud but flowering clean above the water, it stands for the purity of the awakened mind.
Meaning
The lotus grows in muddy water, and Lion's Roar explains the reading: the flower is the purity of the enlightened mind arising amid the suffering of samsara, and it stands for nonattachment, rooted in the mud of attachment and desire while its flowers open on long stalks, clean of it. Colour changes the meaning. A white lotus is mental purity, a red one love and compassion, a blue one wisdom, always shown partly open, and a gold one complete enlightenment. A closed bud is the time before enlightenment and a full bloom is enlightenment itself. According to the Tibetan Language Institute's guide, every important deity in Buddhist art sits on a lotus or holds one.
Origin and history
The comparison is an old one. The Lalitavistara says that "the spirit of the best of men is spotless, like the lotus in the muddy water which does not adhere to it".
It is also one of the oldest Buddhist signs. Among the symbols on ancient Indian coins, Foucher (1917) read the lotus, in its best-known form with eight petals on the coins of Eran, as the sign of the Bodhisattva's miraculous birth. Alice Getty's book of 1914 glosses the lotus among the eight as the "pledge of salvation or Nirvana".
The lotus in stories and prayer
According to legend, a lotus bloomed wherever the baby Buddha stepped. The Tibetan mantra Om mani padme hum, "Om the jewel in the lotus hum", calls on Chenrezig (Avalokiteshvara), the bodhisattva of compassion.
A flower Tibet doesn't grow
The lotus does not grow in Tibet, so Tibetan artists paint only stylised versions of it, according to the Tibetan Language Institute's guide.
Shared with Hinduism
The lotus and the conch are sacred in Hinduism too: Manitoba's schools guide to Hinduism notes that both are similar to Buddhist symbols. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a figure of Vishnu whose upper hands carry a lotus and a conch. See the Hindu padma.
Worn today
In 2014 a lotus was part of a tattoo that got a tourist deported. Sri Lanka expelled Naomi Coleman, a British nurse, over a tattoo on her arm of the Buddha seated on a lotus flower; police said she was arrested for “hurting others’ religious feelings”. Coleman said she practised Buddhism, and had the tattoo “not out of disrespect for Buddhism”.
Buddhists disagree about such tattoos. Rod Meade Sperry, editor of Lion’s Roar’s Buddhadharma, finds people’s reasons for getting them run “from the absolutely inane to the sincere and aspirational”: for some the tattoo is “a bodily vow”, while others think any Buddhist tattoo disrespectful, above all below the waist. Thailand’s Culture Ministry moved against tourists’ religious tattoos in 2011. Writing in Tricycle in 2016, Mark Hay found that many people from the cultures behind these designs see their use by outsiders as harmful appropriation; Scott A. Mitchell of the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, Hay reports, cautions that there are no hard lines, and that some symbols may be so universal that they are, in a sense, fair game.
Read next
- Next in Buddhist symbolsRight-turning conchA white conch shell spiralling to the right, one of the eight auspicious symbols. Its sound is the Buddha's teaching, carrying in every direction.
- The lotus is sacred in Hinduism too.PadmaThe lotus flower, held by Hindu deities and used as the seat they sit on.
See also
Lily, Dharmachakra, Ensō, Bodhi leaf, Triratna, Stupa.
Sources
- What is the Meaning of the Lotus in Buddhism?, Lion’s Roar
- The Eight Auspicious Symbols, Tibetan Language Institute, quoting Robert Beer, The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, Lotus Flower
- The Eight Auspicious Signs, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (translator), Mandala, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition, no. 4
- The Eight Auspicious Symbols, Tibetan Monks’ Residency, Office of Cultural Affairs, Salisbury University
- Eight Auspicious Symbols (gallery text, illustration after Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings), Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
- The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology, A. Foucher, 1917, Paul Geuthner, Paris; Humphrey Milford, London (Internet Archive)
- The Gods of Northern Buddhism, Alice Getty, with an introduction by J. Deniker, 1914, Clarendon Press, Oxford (Internet Archive)
- Hinduism: A Supplemental Resource for Grade 12 World of Religions: A Canadian Perspective. Practices, Rituals, Symbols, and Special Days/Celebrations, Manitoba Education, Government of Manitoba
- Vishnu Chaturanama, Victoria and Albert Museum
- Sri Lanka to expel tourist with Buddha tattoo, Al Jazeera, 23 April 2014, Al Jazeera
- Tattoo Of Buddha Gets British Tourist Thrown Out Of Sri Lanka, Scott Neuman, NPR, 22 April 2014 (via Vermont Public), NPR
- Buddhist tattoos: Not always a hit, especially below the belt, Rod Meade Sperry, 19 March 2013, Lion’s Roar
- Permanent Buddhism: Buddhist Tattoos, Mark Hay, 18 May 2016, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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