The Lotus Farmer’s Journey
In a single, decisive motion, Asoka embedded his machete into the side of a tree, leaving the hooked blade firmly lodged in its trunk. This Sri Lankan lotus farmer, in his late 40s, bore dark, weathered skin, a graying soul patch, and lips stained a deep red from chewing betel nut. He carefully placed his phone among the branches and gestured for me to remove my shoes. The grass felt remarkably resilient beneath my feet on that February morning, while mud oozed between my toes. “Pankaja,” I whispered to myself, recalling that it translates to “born of mud.” This is one of over 40 names for the sacred lotus flower (Nelumbo nucifera) in Sanskrit. Rolling my corduroys up to my knees, we began to wade into the lake that Asoka had leased for cultivation.
The rising sun bathed the landscape in a soft glow, illuminating the thin mist that hung over the water. Soon, we stood in several inches of soft mud and murky water, surrounded by a lush colony of lotuses. There were fading pink calyxes, others in full bloom with their yellowish-white interiors and translucent petals, all sheltered by broad, nodding leaves and curled, elliptical buds. Most captivating of all was the fruiting receptacle, resembling something jettisoned by a spacecraft as it breached the Earth’s atmosphere — a magical cup of extraordinary resilience, containing the beanlike seeds of the lotus, which hold the potential to sprout even after a millennium.
Nelumbo, the scientific genus name for the sacred flower, was first adopted by the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in the early 18th century, and it has roots in Sinhalese. It was this remarkable flower, in all its forms — from its physical beauty to its role as a religious offering, cultural artifact, and political symbol — that drew me to Sri Lanka. After an 18-hour journey from New York to Colombo, the country’s modern capital, I traveled alongside Nayomi Apsara, a 44-year-old local filmmaker and poet, who served as my guide and translator. Together, we drove for five hours and 124 miles to Anuradhapura, the ancient capital nestled amid lakes and jungles in the north, where we met Asoka before dawn.
The lake, which he rented for less than $100 a month, was just 30 minutes from the city. We traveled in a rented car, with Asoka navigating his white auto-rickshaw. Along the way, we paused to receive blessings from a roadside Ganpati, the deity revered as the remover of obstacles in both Buddhist Sri Lanka and Hindu India, where I had grown up. In the dim light of dawn, bumping along a red-earth road, I noticed the land was awash with water. We passed the imposing silhouettes of trees, their trunks partially submerged in lakes, their dark canopies contrasting with the brightening sky. Cormorants and herons basked in the early morning sun, while a rust-breasted jungle fowl strutted along the water’s edge. A sign caught my eye, reading, “Do not pick the flowers; the lake has been leased for cultivation.” A column of blue smoke spiraled from the paddies. The cement foundations of village houses were painted a reddish-brown, their freshly swept yards adorned with trees bearing flowers and fruits — banana, hibiscus, and papaya — which are utilized in ritual prayers, or puja, as well as for decoration and consumption. Outside one such house, vibrant orange in color, we were greeted by Asoka’s landlords, an uncle and nephew clad in short-sleeved shirts and striped saramas (sarongs). After exchanging pleasantries, we followed the lotus farmer into the ooze.
“GROWING IN the mud, and yet so pure, the lotus symbolizes purity,” writes Sri Lankan historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in his 1913 book The Arts and Crafts of India & Ceylon. He elaborates that the lotus pool, with its leaves and flowers in various stages of bloom, reflects the ebb and flow of human existence (samsara).
It’s fascinating how much a flower can reveal about a society if one takes the time to observe. In Sri Lanka, I aimed to trace the journey of the lotus from the muddy waters where it was cultivated by individuals like Asoka to the bustling stalls where enterprising vendors offered it to devotees. I sought to witness its transformation into stone, sculpted into ornamental features as commonplace as the egg-and-dart motif in classical Western architecture. This quest would lead me from Sri Lanka’s ancient capital, Anuradhapura, to the medieval city of Polonnaruwa, approximately 66 miles to the south, and then onward to Kandy, located another 80 miles further south. Kandy, the last royal capital of the island kingdom, is now a lakeside town of 1.5 million, surrounded by colonial-era tea plantations, rolling hills, and lush rainforest. In each of these locations, the essence of kingship was intertwined with the possession of a sacred relic — a tooth of the Buddha, brought from India in the hair ornament of a princess in the fourth century, now housed in the Temple of the Tooth (Sri Dalada Maligawa) in Kandy. Buddhism, introduced to the island from India in the third century B.C., is practiced here in the form of Theravada — the Way of the Elders, in Pali, the liturgical language of Buddhism — akin to practices in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Thailand.
In the lake, with fish nibbling at my feet, Asoka pointed out the tiny curled tip of the lotus leaf breaking through the water’s surface. “First, the leaf emerges,” he explained, “one leaf, one bud, and the flower blossoms beneath the leaf’s shade, which protects it, much like a parasol.” Just the day before, he had been in his dinghy, harvesting around 1,700 flowers, handling 400 stems at a time. These he sold to vendors near the Ruwanwelisaya stupa in Anuradhapura for 40 rupees (approximately 13 cents) each. The vendors then resold them to devotees for four to five times that price, creating a vibrant economy around this beautiful flower.
