The Respiratory Lotus

Motifs and Metaphors of the Puranas: the Respiratory Lotus. The authors of the Puranas translocated the entire world into the respiratory system of man. The bronchial tree was compared to a lotus.

The bronchial tree is represented through a variety of depictions. One of the most famous among these, ever-present in painting and sculpture, is the lotus. According to the Bhagavata, the earth is like a lotus and its islands (dvipas) are regarded as its different compartments (kosas). Jambudvipa is said to be the innermost compartment of this earth-lotus.

The different portions of the bronchial tree are compared to  the different parts of a lotus.

A lotus has an innermost compartment consisting of the pericarp (karnika) and the filaments and in the bronchial lotus this central part corresponds to the primary bronchus and the bronchi “surrounding” it. This portion probably extends to the zone of the segmental bronchi. After this come the layers of petals. Each level of branching of the airways following the central portion would indicate a kosa and the individual bronchi within a level would stand for the petals.

Now as the bronchi are also imagined as mountains in the metaphorical world of the Puranas, the primary bronchus, the pericarp of this earth-lotus, is also a (great) mountain. It is Mt. Meru, the most exalted among mountains. The abode of Brahma, the primary neural controller of the respiratory tree, is on the top of this mountain. But as the bronchial tree is also a lotus, the connoisseurs of Puranic art would at the same time find Brahma seated on the pericarp of a lotus, due to this simultaneity of metaphor.

In Puranic paintings Brahma is seen seated atop the pericarp of a lotus. This lotus is the bronchial tree and its pericarp is the primary bronchus.

One other observation is that, although Jambudvipa is said to be the innermost compartment, the four zones (varsas) of Bharata, Uttara Kuru, Bhadrasva and Ketumala included in this dvipa do not really fall into this compartment.

These four are said to be (Vayu Purana) the four petals of the earth-lotus, lying outside the mountains of boundary. But as we have seen, the innermost kosa would not contain any petal.Therefore we may have a slightly expanded definition of Jambudvipa in which it consists of two compartments, the innermost (petal-less) one and the layer of (four) petals immediately surrounding it.