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The lotus flower, the species of flower said to have been used during the Flower Sermon. The Flower Sermon is a story of the origin of Zen Buddhism in which Gautama Buddha transmits direct prajñā (wisdom) to the disciple Mahākāśyapa. In the original Chinese, the story is Niān huā wéi xiào (拈花微笑, meaning "Picking up a flower and ...
The vast majority of lotus thrones just depict an isolated flower or a group of flowers under different figures. But some images depict more of the plant. A famous relief of Gaja-Laxmi in Cave 16 at Ellora shows a pond of lotus leaves and budding flowers as a vertical panel below the throne. [17] Burmese wood and lacquer Buddha, 11th century
The boy Buddha appearing within a lotus. Crimson and gilded wood, Trần-Hồ dynasty, Vietnam, 14th–15th century. In the Aṅguttara Nikāya, the Buddha compares himself to a lotus (padma in Sanskrit, in Pali, paduma), [3] saying that the lotus flower rises from the muddy water unstained, as he rises from this world, free from the defilements taught in the specific sutta.
It is said that in the ancient Buddhist texts [22] in order that people might make their offerings in the name of the Buddha when he was away on pilgrimage, the Buddha sanctioned the planting of a seed from the Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya in front of the gateway of Jetavana Monastery near Sravasti.
The Sutra on the meritorious action of bathing the Buddha's image was translated into Chinese in 710. [10] Reenacting the legend of the Buddha's birth, the annual rite known as kanbutsu-e ("rite of sprinkling the Buddha", more popularly hana matsuri or "flower festival") sees the bathing of small Buddha statues amidst garlands of flowers.
The Buddha sat cross-legged with his hands folded and palms upturned. On each side of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas are standing on the lotus. [5] The right Bodhisattva holds a vase in his left hand, and the left Bodhisattva holds a plant in his left hand. Behind each of these two Bodhisattvas, a Bodhisattva is sitting on a lotus.
To see a fully awakened person, a Buddha, is so rare that it is like seeing an udumbara flower. In the Tu Hieu Monastery in Hue, there is a scroll which says: "The udumbara flower, although fallen from the stem, is still fragrant." Just as the fragrance of the udumbara flower cannot be destroyed, our capacity for enlightenment is always present.
The earliest Buddhist art is from the Mauryan era (322 BCE – 184 BCE), there is little archeological evidence for pre-Mauryan period symbolism. [6] Early Buddhist art (circa 2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE) is commonly (but not exclusively) aniconic (i.e. lacking an anthropomorphic image), and instead used various symbols to depict the Buddha.