During our visit to the Garuda Wisnu Cultural Centre we learned about the way the Balinese view the lotus. It gave me a new appreciation for this beautiful plant.
This description was written on a tile in the Park:
The Lotus is the foremost symbol of beauty, prosperity and fertility. Wisnu (Hindu-Balinese God of life and peace) always carries a lotus in his hand and almost all the gods of the Hindu pantheon are seated on lotuses or carry the flower. The lotus plant grows up through the water, having its root in the illys, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The lotus thus typifies the life of man, and also that of the cosmos; the root of the lotus sunken in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematic of spiritual being.
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