"Before creation, the Hindus said, all the world was a golden lotus, Matripadma, the Mother Lotus, womb of nature. In Egypt, the Great Goddess was called the lotus from whom the sun was born at his first rising. In China, the Golden Flower of mystical quest was the same female-symbolic lotus, just as in Western Europe the lost female-symbolic Grail became an object of quest. The Egyptian lotus was identified with Hathor, the Indian lotus with Lakshmi, or the Goddess Padma, whose name means lotus. Everywhere the Lotus Goddess was a yoni that devoured the sun god, to become his matrix and give him daily rebirth. The lotus was sacred to India’s Mother Kali. Bearing bud, bloom and seed pod together, a lotus is Virgin-Mother-Crone.

The lotus was often taken as a symbol of all four of the classical elements, indicating the primal condition before creation when all these elements were united in the cosmic womb. Earth is the mud in which the flower is rooted, water the surrounding support of its stalk. Its blossom is said to partake of the essence of air, releasing its perfume into the breezes; and its fertility is drawn from the fire of the sun. The red lotus stands for Mother India."

The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, P429, Barbara Walker