Lotus Head Goddess Tattoo Meaning

Enlightenment, the sacred feminine, and a consciousness blooming where the mind should be.

The lotus-head goddess is the divine figure whose head is, or is crowned by, a blooming lotus — the image of consciousness flowering where the ordinary mind would be, the sacred feminine whose awareness has opened into enlightenment, the head become a flower that opens toward the light. To carry the lotus-head goddess is to carry enlightenment, the sacred feminine, and consciousness blooming where the mind should be — the divine figure whose head is a flowering lotus, the image of awareness opened and elevated into the bloom of awakening, the mind transformed into something that opens toward the light.

In Hindu iconography the lotus above the head, or replacing the head, represents opened, elevated, enlightened consciousness. The sahasrara — the crown chakra at the very top of the head, the highest of the energy centers — is depicted precisely as a thousand-petaled lotus, and its full opening is the flowering of complete spiritual realization. So when a deity or sacred figure is shown with a lotus for a head, emerging from a lotus, or crowned by a lotus, the flower represents the opened, awakened, divinely elevated state of awareness at the crown of being.

This imagery runs throughout Hindu sacred art: Brahma the creator sits upon a lotus that grows from the navel of Vishnu; the goddess Lakshmi rises from and is seated upon the lotus; deities hold lotuses and are surrounded by them. In all these the lotus is consciousness blooming — the flower that represents the mind opened into its highest, enlightened, divine state. The lotus-head goddess embodies this: divine consciousness flowering at the crown, awareness opened into its full, radiant bloom. The Hindu lotus-head goddess is the image of consciousness blooming as the thousand-petaled lotus of the awakened crown. The Hindu lotus-head goddess is the lotus of opened consciousness — the lotus above or replacing the head representing awakened, elevated awareness, the sahasrara (crown chakra) depicted as a thousand-petaled lotus whose opening is complete realization, so a figure with a lotus head or emerging from a lotus shows the divinely elevated state of awareness, the flower as consciousness blooming (as Brahma sits on a lotus from Vishnu's navel, and Lakshmi rises from the lotus), the mind opened into its highest radiant state.

The lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) grows with its roots in mud at the bottom of ponds and lakes, its stem through the water, and its flower above the water's surface, untouched by the water or mud — this makes it the natural image across South and Southeast Asian traditions of the pure consciousness that arises from the impure conditions of ordinary life. The sahasrara chakra (thousand-petaled lotus at the crown of the head) is the highest chakra in the kundalini yoga tradition — its opening represents the culmination of spiritual development, the full awakening of consciousness. The image of a figure whose head is replaced by or becomes a lotus appears in temple sculptures across South and Southeast Asia — at Angkor, at South Indian temples, in Himalayan Buddhist art. It is distinct from (though related to) the simpler image of the deity seated on a lotus. The figure of Prajnaparamita (the Perfection of Wisdom) in Tibetan Buddhist iconography is sometimes depicted with the text of the Prajnaparamita Sutra replacing her head — the wisdom-text as the content of enlightened consciousness.

Lotus Head Goddess across cultures

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