No flower has been drawn, carved, woven, or embroidered more often in India than the lotus. It appears in cave paintings at Ajanta, in the headdresses of Pala-period bronzes, in the ceiling roses of Mughal pavilions, in the silk borders of Kanchipuram saris. To understand the lotus is to understand a quiet thread that runs through nearly all Indian visual tradition.
The Sacred and the Decorative
In the philosophical traditions, the lotus is the seat of Lakshmi, the throne of the Buddha, the manifestation of consciousness opening into form. In the decorative traditions, it is the most generous flower — drawn in every degree of stylization, from photo-realistic petals to the eight-petaled ashtadala motif that opens up infinitely.
In the House of Sissendi
You will find the lotus running quietly through our collections. It lives in the central motif of our Awadh framed panels. It is the diagram in the brass inlay of the Kashi platters. It surfaces, sometimes only in fragment, in the embroidered borders of every cushion.
We did not design this in. We could not have left it out. It is what an Indian craft tradition does when given room to breathe.