Indian Bahá'í Temple
Background and
Architecture
Extracts from Interviews with the Architect
The Jewel in the Lotus
Architectural blossoming of the Lotus
|
|
The Jewel in the Lotus
|
 It is possible to see in the architecture of India, to an extent
probably unknown elsewhere, the roots of religion in a most
clear and distinct manner. The meaningful and powerful symbols
which can be seen in the buildings and in their ornamentation,
and even in the settings in which they have been placed, draw
their inspiration from the religious convictions of the people,
convictions which form an integral part of the Indian way of
life. The very bushes growing in the corner of a temple
courtyard or the color of the courtyard wall can tell us to
which religion the temple belongs. In this way we can discover
the allegorical meanings which the forms, the colours, and the
statues in a temple are meant to convey, to such an extent that
we can call Indian architecture an architecture of allegory and
symbol, in that hidden meanings dwell in every shape and form.
These hidden meanings have a close and inspiring connection with
the life of the people of this country.
Against such a background, we Find ourselves faced with two
major questions regarding the design of a Baha'i House of
Worship for India. We understand from some of the statements of
Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, that the
Baha'i Temple should be a symbol manifesting the Baha'i Faith,
revealing the simplicity, clarity, and freshness of this new
Revelation. On the other hand, in showing respect for the basic
beliefs of the religions of the past, the Temple must act as a
constant reminder to the followers of each faith that all the
religions of God are one, and that the Baha'i Faith, for all
that it may have many new features, is in no way cut off or
detached from the life of the Indian people, but rather looks
upon them all with respect and love.
Basing our research on the above sentiments, and seeking at all
times to discover a common strand running through the symbolism
of the many religions and sects to be found today in India, we
undertook a study in the hope that we could prepare a design
which, while it would in no way imitate any of the existing
architectural schools of India, would be familiar to the Indian
people, in the same way that when one speaks to them of the
teachings and principles of the Baha'i Faith they sense that
here is a vision become reality, a dream fulfilled, albeit
expressed in words that are new and even unheard of.
Sacred symbol
 When one looks closely at Indian architecture, one realizes that
despite the outward dissimilarities to be seen between various
temples, we can sometimes discover significant and sacred
symbols regarded as holy and divine by all the Indian religions,
symbols which have even penetrated to other countries and other
religions. One of these symbols is the sacred flower of the
Indians, the lotus.
Although it would be preferable to begin a discussion of the
lotus with a survey of the Mandala, one of the oldest religious
symbols in the world, we shall move directly into our discussion
without such preamble.
To the Indian taste, the lotus has always been the fairest
flower; it has enjoyed unparalleled popularity throughout the
length and breadth of India from the earliest times down to the
present day, as shown by its predominance in literature and art.
Mentioned in the oldest Veda, it plays a prominent part in the
mythology of Brahmanism. To the later Sanskrit poets it is the
emblem of beauty to which they constantly compare the faces of
their heroines. The lotus, moreover, enters into Indian art of
all ages and all religions as a prominent decorative element. It
appears on the oldest architectural monuments of Hinduism all
over India. With the spread of Buddhism to the countries of the
Far East, its use as an ornament in religious art has extended
as far as Japan.
In literature. The lotus is named in the Rigveda and is
mentioned with increasing frequency in the later Samhitas. In
the Atharvaveda the human heart is compared with the lotus, and
the Panchavimsa Brahmana speaks of its flower being born of the
light of the Constellations. In the Brahmanas the lotus first
appears as associated with the Creator Prajapati in cosmogonic
myths. The Taittiriya Brahmana recounts that Prajapati, desiring
to create the universe, which in the beginning was fluid, saw a
lotus leaf [puskara-pamd) protruding from the water. Thinking
that it must rest on something, he dived into the water in the
form of a boar, and, finding the earth below, broke off a
fragment, rose with it to the surface, and spread it out on the
leaf. Elsewhere, the Taittiriya Aranyaka relates that when the
universe was still fluid, Prajapati alone was created on a lotus
leaf.
Later, in the epic poetry of the Mahabharata, the Creator, under
the name of Brahma, is described as having sprung from the lotus
that grew out of Vishnu's navel when that deity lay absorbed in
meditation. Hence, one of the appellations for Brahma is
lotus-born [abja-ja, abja-yoni, etc.). The lotus is thus
connected with Vishnu, one of whose names is, accordingly,
padma-nabha, lotus-naveled. It is further associated with
Vishnu's wife, Lakshmi, goddess of fortune and beauty. The
Mahabharata relates the myth that a lotus sprung from Vishnu's
forehead, out of which came Sri (another name for the goddess).
Lakshmi is also called Padma (lotus-hued). The Mahabharata, in
its account of Mount Kailasa, the abode of Kubera, the god of
wealth, described his lake, Nalini, and his river, Mandakini, as
covered with golden lotuses.
In art. With the rise of religious art in India, the
lotus appeared on all the Buddhist monuments which came into
being in different parts of the country from about 200 B.C.
onwards. In its simplest form, the expanded lotus appears
frequently as a circular ornament in the sculptures at Sanchi,
Bharhut, Amravati, and Bodh Gaya, as well as in the rock-cut
Buddhist temples of Western India, introduced as medallions on
pillars, panels, and ceilings. Elaborately carved half-lotuses
sometimes appear in these settings, or, in Sri Lanka, as
so-called-moon-stones on semi-circular stone slabs at the foot
of staircases. Lotuses growing on stems also occur in the
sculptures of Gandhara and of Mathura, and often figure in
elaborate floral designs on the pillars of Sanchi or the panels
of Amravati.
Further, from earliest times, the lotus is fashioned either as a
seat or as a pedestal on which divine or sacred beings rest in a
sitting or standing posture. The oldest and most striking
example of this use is exhibited in the Figure of the Hindu
goddess Lakshmi, in the Buddhist sculptures at Udayagiri, at
Bharhut, and especially at Sanchi, where it is frequently
repeated on the gateways of the Great Stupa. Lakshmi is
portrayed sitting or standing on a lotus and holding a lotus
flower in each hand watered by two pots raised aloft by the
trunks of two elephants. This ancient motif is found all over
India to the present day and occurs as well among the old
sculptures at Polonaruwa in Sri Lanka.
Widespread use
 Once Buddha began to be represented in sculpture, his image was
constantly depicted as sitting cross-legged on a lotus seat, or
occasionally standing on a lotus pedestal. It occurs in this
form, for instance, at Rajgir in Bihar, in the Kanheri caves
near Mumbai, and often in the Gandhara monuments of the
northwest. From the latter region this representation spread
beyond the confines of India to Nepal, Burma, China, and Japan.
Even when the seat is not actually the flower itself, two,
three, or four lotuses are carved on its front, as in the
Gandhara sculptures. Such lotuses are also found delineated on a
footstool on which Gautama rests his feet instead of sitting
cross-legged. The number of the petals of such lotuses varies
from four to six.
The use of the lotus seat has been extended to images of
bodhisattvas not only in India but in Buddhist countries beyond
its borders. Thus, Manjusri is represented sitting in this way
not only at Sarnath, near Benares, but also in Java and Tibet.
In a modern Tibetan picture Maitreya is depicted on a lotus
seat, and the figure of a Persian bodhisattva sitting on a seat
adorned with lotuses and painted on a wooden panel was
discovered by M.A. Stein during his first expedition to Central
Asia. In China the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara appears sitting on
a lotus seat, and in Nepal standing on a lotus pedestal. The
lotus is intimately connected with this bodhisattva, for he is
represented as bom from a lotus, and he regularly holds a lotus
in his hand, whence his appellation Padmapani, or lotus-handed.
Moreover, the Buddhist chant Om Mani Padme Hum (Yea 0 jewel in
the lotus! Amen), which in the present is the most sacred prayer
of the Buddhists in Tibet, refcrcs to Avalokitesvara. The
persistence of this application of the lotus is indicated by the
fact that it appears not only in modern Indian brass images of
Hindu gods but even in seated portraits ofmaharajas of the 19th
century.
The lotus seat and pedestal have an almost universal application
in connection with the figures of Hindu mythology. Brahma
appears seated on Vishnu's navel lotus. The three great gods of
the Hindu triad, Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu, with their
respective wives, Sarasvati, Parvati, and Lakshmi, as well as
Agni, god of fire, Pavanna, god of wind, Ganesa, god of wisdom,
Vishnu's incarnation Rama, and the demon Ravana, are all found
represented on a lotus seat. Vishnu, in addition, regularly
holds a lotus in one of his four hands. A lotus pedestal also
serves as a stand for images of the god Indra, of Vishnu and
nearly all his incarnations, and of the sun god Surya. In Sri
Lanka the lotus pedestal also supports Shiva, Parvati, and
Kubera, god of wealth, and in Tibet it serves as a base for
Sarasvati, goddess of learning.
Similarly, in the ancient Jain sculptures found at Mathura the
lotus appears repeatedly as a medallion or in more elaborate
floral decorations. It also appears as the symbol of the sixth
jina, or saint. At present it is worshipped generally by the
Hindus in India.
Creative force
 The symbolism of the lotus flower (padma, pundarika, utpala] was
borrowed by the Buddhists directly from the parent religion
Brahmanism. From earliest history, the lotus flower appears to
have symbolized for Aryans primarily the idea of superhuman or
divine birth, and secondarily the creative force and
immortality. The traditional Indian and Buddhist explanation is
that the glorious lotus flower appears to spring not from the
sordid earth but from the surface of the water and is always
pure and unsullied, no matter how impure the water of the lake
may be. It thus expresses the idea of supernatural birth and the
emergence of the first created living thing from the primordial
waters of chaos. Hence, the flower was regarded as the matrix of
the Hindu creator himself, Narayana, and of his later form as
the god Brahma, who are portrayed, respectively, as reclining
and seated upon a lotus flower, as in the pre-Buddhist
Vaishnavite Bhagavad-Gita. Conceivably, this was the
significance of the lotus when it was first applied to the
historical Buddha, Sakyamuni.
As an emblem of divine birth the lotus is a common motif in
Buddhist art and literature, as has been noted above. In the
Buddhist paradise of Sukhavati, the goal of popular Mahayana
Buddhists, everyone is reborn as a god upon a lotus flower (Soddhama
pundarika}, and there are lotus flowers of many gems. The
Western notion of the beauty of lotus-eating is possibly a
heritage of this ancient view of divine existence.
A manifestation of the myth of divine lotus birth is thought to
be the myth which invests Buddha with the miraculous power of
imprinting the image of a lotus flower on the earth with every
step that he took. The references to this in the Pali canon are
innumerable, although in the earliest book of that canon, the
Mahapadana Suttanta, the account of the infant Buddha's first
seven steps makes no mention of the lotus imprints that appear
in the later versions.
The lotus was especially identified with the sun. This
association doubtless rested upon the observation that the
flower opened when the sun rose and closed at sunset, suggesting
to the primitive mind that the flower might be the residence of
the sun during its nocturnal passage through the underworld, or
that it might be the vivifier, resurrector, or regenerator of
the renewed sun of the next day. Its large, multi-rayed petals
would also contribute to this association. Probably its
association with the sun explains why the lotus flower in the
Gandhara sculptures, and often, subsequently, took the place of
Buddha's footprints in the wheeled disk of the sun with its
thousand spokes, which may have represented the Aryan queen of
heaven.
Architectural traces
 The motif of a lotus flower held in the hand seems to have
symbolised not merely divine birth but the possession of life
everlasting and the preservation and procreation of life. This
was the case for the Aryan queen of heaven, the Brahmanist
goddess Sri, and her derivative, the Buddhist Tara, both of whom
have the title Garlanded by Lotuses. In the mystical Vedic,
pre-Buddhist Satapatha Brahmana, the lotus was a symbol of the
womb, and, as we have seen, it appears to have this meaning in
the famous Om Mani Padme Hum prayer. Probably, such a meaning
may in part be implied in the lotus held in the hand of
Avalokitesvara, the consort of Tara, to whom that prayer is now
specially addressed. However, in the hand of Maitreya, the
future Buddha, and other divine bodhisattvas ofGandhara, the
lotus may have had a metaphysical significance and perhaps
denoted the preservation and revivifying of the life of the law.
It was possibly in this sense as cherishers of the law that we
find a lotus flower adorning the hands of many of the images of
Buddhas and bodhisattvas who are not particularly identified
with the lotus attribute.
The lotus symbol can be easily traced in Zoroastrian
architecture. The carving ofArdashir II at Taq-i-Bustan shows
Mithra standing on a lotus flower. In the bas-relief at
Persepolis the king and most of his nobles each hold a lotus in
their hands. The lotus flower is one of the oldest and most
beautiful elements in the patterns of Persian carpets, and it
can often be seen in Islamic architecture of the Seljuq and
later periods. For example, the shape of a lotus occurs in the
design of the perforated plaster work in the mihrab (prayer
niche) of the Malik mosque in Kirman.
The discussion above serves to show how the lotus has been used
as a unifying symbol in all the Indian religions. In the design
of the Baha'i House of Worship, however, the symbol has been
employed in an unprecedented fashion. The most basic idea in the
design is that light and water are used as its two fundamental
elements, and that these two elements alone are responsible for
the ornamentation of the House of Worship in place of the
thousands of statues and carvings to be found in other temples.by Fariborz Sahba |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|