Padma
The lotus flower, held by Hindu deities and used as the seat they sit on.
Meaning
Vishnu holds one in some images, such as the four-armed figure in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the goddess Lakshmi sits on one and holds one. The Himalayan Academy calls the lotus the perfection of beauty and links it to the deities and to the chakras, above all the thousand-petalled sahasrara; rooted in mud, its blossom is “a promise of purity and unfoldment”. In Tantric usage, the Monier-Williams dictionary notes, padma is also a name for the chakras of the upper body.
Origin and history
In the Vishnu Purana’s account of the churning of the ocean, the goddess Sri rises from the waves seated on a full-blown lotus and holding a water-lily; when Vishnu was born as the dwarf, the Purana adds, she appeared from a lotus, as Padma or Kamala. In images of Vishnu lying down, T. A. Gopinatha Rao records, Brahma sits on the lotus that grows from Vishnu’s navel.
In other traditions
The lotus is also one of the eight auspicious symbols of the Buddhism of East Asia and the Himalayas (see Lotus).
See also
Lotus, Sri Yantra, Trishula, Damaru, Shankha, Sudarshana Chakra.
Sources
- Sacred Symbols, Himalayan Academy
- Vishnu Chaturanama, Victoria and Albert Museum, Summary
- Elements of Hindu Iconography, Vol. I, Part I, T. A. Gopinatha Rao, 1914, Law Printing House, Madras (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library copy), Chapter on Vishnu
- The Vishnu Purana, translated by H. H. Wilson (Digital Library of India reprint), Translated by H. H. Wilson, Internet Archive (Digital Library of India copy), Book I, chapter 9
- Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899): padma, Monier Monier-Williams, p. 584, Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries, University of Cologne
- Eight Auspicious Symbols (gallery text, illustration after Terese Tse Bartholomew, Hidden Meanings), Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Last reviewed September 24, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research