1. Persian Flower Border. 2. Egyptian Border, composed of Head-dress of the god Nile (Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians”). 3. Assyrian. 4. Assyrian.
The lotus and the patterns founded on its forms, and the many emblematic meanings attached to them, are notable examples of these transmutations in style and intention, and of the value given to their intention and use in Egypt and India, where each development was immediately crystallized into a recognized pattern, and given its place and language. It received its “mot d’ordre,” and continued to act upon it long after the meaning was forgotten or out of date.
The rolling pattern which had so long represented only the “wave,” was given to the really straight stem of the lotus, and its blossom, substituted for the wave’s crest, now filled many a frieze in Indian temple architecture; whereas the lotus stems in Egypt were still bound in sheaves to form columns, and the flowers, buds, and leaves spread and blossomed into capitals. Here we have symbolism and conventionalized naturalism, all combined, showing how their principles, though quite distinct, can mix and unite. The conventional form often superseded and effaced the naturalistic, and became the sign of an idea, or the hieroglyphic picture of a thing; immovable and unalterable in Egypt, where every effort was made to secure eternity on earth, but continually returning to naturalism in India, where the Aryan tendency, with the assistance of the “Code of Manu,” always recurred to the restoration of the ancient naturalistic motive.
In the India Museum we may see the “wave” motive converted into a lotus pattern by rolling the long stems, and filling up the spaces between with the full-faced blossom. Sometimes the pattern is started by the figure of an elephant, from whose mouth the stem of the flower of the sun proceeds. This occurs so often that it must originally have had a meaning. Sometimes the sacred convolvulus takes the place of the lotus. (Plate [12].)
On an Egyptian mural painting are seen parties of men snaring ducks among papyrus and lotus plants. These are entirely conventional, and are, in fact, a sort of recognized hieroglyphic representing the idea of a lotus.[99]
The lotus was the accepted emblem of the sun, and reduced to a many-leaved radiating pattern may be found as an architectural ornament on the outside of the Buddhist “topes,” of which the models are on the staircase of the British Museum.[100] (Plate [13].)
We have Sir G. Birdwood’s authority for believing that, though the actual lotus was a native of India, and carried thence to Egypt, its decorative use as a pattern was Egyptian, and so returned to India. Both accepted it as their “sunflower.”[101]
Pl. 12.