Part of Aleph’s Essential India Editions, Flower of India: Ways of Seeing the Lotus, is a compact yet comprehensive view of the flower that is considered sacred in India. Under the adept penmanship of Devdutt Pattanaik, the aquatic flower reveals all its contexts in history, culture and mythology. The book is barely 90 pages, something that can be finished in one sitting, and opens up its petals to reveal the lotus’s symbolic and cultural relevance in the Indian psyche for centuries, as well as its more functional aspects.
Pattanaik, who is known for his deep knowledge of Indian mythology, pulls the book out of monotony with his illustrations and keeps the chapters and subheads short, making it easy to read. The project was undoubtedly exciting for him, as he shares: “When David Davidar (co-founder of Aleph Book Company) approached me with the idea, it felt exciting. A whole book on the lotus seemed obvious in hindsight, but it had never been organised in a focused way before. The challenge lay in taking something familiar and seeing it afresh, beyond its casual presence in culture.”
Before Pattanaik begins unfolding the petals of the flower and moves on to its botany and epistemology, he apprises the reader that, though the Botanical Survey of India, in a 2017 RTI query, informed that it has never declared the lotus the national flower of India, the flower is central to India’s culture, cuisine and mythology. He also lets the reader differentiate between a water lily and a lotus on the basis of their physical features, their timings for blooming and more. Sharing his approach for the book and its subject, Pattanaik said: “The approach relied on classification and layering. The lotus functioned as a symbol across Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It also appeared in Mughal architecture. Beyond symbolism, attention shifted to material reality: stem, seed, habitat, and regional food practices. Conversations with cooks revealed how lotus stem was more common in North India than in the South. The effort lay in placing science, culture, and symbolism side by side.”
Pattanaik’s books have always been research and curiosity-driven, and it’s no different for Flower of India. Packed with information, the author brings some fascinating information about the lotus. Talking about the red variety of lotus, Pattanaik informs how, in the 1857 Uprising, it played a crucial role as a symbol of rebel logistics and coordination and how it helped bypass British surveillance. Talking about his research for the book, Pattanaik said: “Knowledge of mythology helped me, but the curiosity extended beyond it. Buddhist imagery proved equally engaging, especially figures like Tara holding the lotus. The distinction between lotus and lily became important, particularly the fact that the so-called blue lotus was actually a lily. Temple practices often blurred this difference. Research included Yaksha fertility imagery, Buddhist stupa motifs, Tamil poetry, and Vedic narratives. Each strand contributed to a wider cultural web.”
In a section titled Devotion, he narrates how, before going to the war with Ravana, Ram promised to offer 108 lotuses to Durga, and how, when one flower went missing, he offered his own eyes, which were described as lotus-like. With passages like these, he passes on his curiosity to the reader. We ask him which, if there was any particular story that stood out for him. “The story of Indra hiding inside a lotus stem stood out. Sages searching for him discovered him within the plant, turning the lotus into a place of concealment and revelation. Another striking motif came from Sanskrit poetry: the bee trapped in the lotus by nectar, and the recurring image of separation. The lotus bloomed in the rains, while the goose migrated; when the goose returned, the flower had turned into fruit. This cycle became a metaphor for longing.”
In simple passages, Devdutt dissects the flower and talks about the relevance of its stalk, stem, petals, leaf, seeds and more, and how the flower was an integral part in Sanskrit poetry, in the Mahabharata, in Devi Bhagavata Purana, the Chandogya Upanishads, Atharva Veda and even in Buddhism. The flower has been and continues to be used as an offering, as food and as medicine.
Moving on to his illustrations, Pattanaik, who has read three books in the Essential India Editions, said: “Visual storytelling remained central. Certain ideas could not be explained through words alone. The inverted lotus, the lotus bud in Islamic architecture, or variations in form across traditions required illustration. The image carried what description alone could not.”
He said that the intention behind the book was to reveal the richness of the lotus as more than a political marker. “It functioned as a spiritual, artistic, and material symbol across centuries. The hope remained that readers recognised this layered complexity,” said Pattanaik, who plans to launch his next book, which will be about history and mythology, later this year.
