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In Asian art a lotus throne is a stylized lotus flower used as the seat or base for a figure. It is the normal pedestal for divine figures in Buddhist art and Hindu art, and often seen in Jain art. Originating in Indian art, it followed Indian religions to East Asia in particular.

The precise form varies, but is intended to represent the opening flower of Nelumbo nucifera the Indian lotus; in some Buddhist legends the baby Buddha emerged from a lotus flower. The Indian lotus is an aquatic plant similar to a water lily, though not actually any close relation. Among other unusual characteristics, nelumbo nucifera has particular properties of repelling water, known as the lotus effect or ultrahydrophobicity. Among other symbolic meanings, it rises above the water environment it lives in, and is not contaminated by it, so providing a model for Buddhists.

In Sanscrit the throne is called either a padmasana (asana is the name for a seated position), which is also the name for the Lotus position in meditation and yoga, or padmapitha, padma meaning lotus and pitha a base or plinth.

History

The form is first seen as a base for rare early images of Laxmi from the 2nd century BCE. However it first becomes common with seated Buddha figures in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara around the 3rd century CE. In early Buddhist art it may be intended to specifically depict the second of the Twin Miracles in the legend of the Buddha's life. In some accounts of this, when engaged in a contest with sorcerers, the Buddha multiplied himself into other bodies, which sat or stood on lotus flowers. It became used for other Buddhist figures, and began to be adopted for Hindu deities.

Form

The throne in art evolved to be rather distant from the actual plant. In historic sculpture there is very often a clear dividing line about halfway up; most often petal shapes both rise and fall from this, but sometimes the upper part of the throne attempts to represent the prominent flat-topped seed head as a base for the figure. In East Asian paintings, and also modern Hindu paintings, the lotus throne is often depicted more realistically in terms of its shape (though obviously not its size).

• Flower of nelumbo nucifera the Indian lotus
• Gaja-Laxmi, 1st century BCE
• Restrained lotus throne typical of Chola bronzes, when they have them at all. Shiva Nataraja, 10th century.
• Thrones under Parvati, 11th century
• Guanyin, 12th-century Japan
• Apart from the three figures, the pendent foot of this 12th-century Tibetan Mahakala has its own throne
• Krishna, the butter thief, ivory, 16th-century India
• Fancy coloured Buddhist throne under a wrathful deity, Ladakh
• Gaja-Laxmi, Odisha, 18th century
• Raja Ravi Varma, Goddess Lakshmi, 1896

Notes

1. Krishan & Tadikonda, 65; Rodrigues
2. Jansen, 18
3. Krishan & Tadikonda, 78, note 89
4. Moore & Klein, 149; Krishan & Tadikonda, 65
5. Krishan & Tadikonda, 67
6. Hāṇḍā, Omacanda, Gaddi Land in Chamba: Its History, Art & Culture : New Light on the Early Wooden Temples, 78-79, 2005, Indus Publishing, ISBN 8173871744, 9788173871740, google books

References

• Jansen, Eva Rudy, The Book of Hindu Imagery: The Gods and their Symbols, 1993, Binkey Kok Publications, ISBN 9074597076, 9789074597074, google books
• Krishan, Yuvrajmm, Tadikonda, Kalpana K., The Buddha Image: Its Origin and Development, 1996, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, ISBN 8121505658, 9788121505659, google books
• Moore, Albert C., Klein, Charlotte, Iconography of Religions: An Introduction, 1977, Chris Robertson, ISBN 0800604881, 9780800604882, google books
• Rodrigues, H, "The Sacred Lotus Symbol", Mahavidya, 2016

• Buddhist iconography
• Hindu iconography
• Indian art