As from a heap of rubbish cast on the highway, a lotus may bloom with pure fragrance and delightful,

This verse is the first half of one of the most famous couplets in the Dhammapada (58-59). The image is radical in its beauty: the lotus (paduma) born from the rubbish heap on the main road. Saṅkāradhāna is literally the place where rubbish is cast; mahāpathe is the great way, the main highway.

Sucigandhaṃ manoramaṃ — with pure fragrance and delightful to the mind. The lotus does not absorb the impurity of the mud: it is born from it, is nourished by it in a sense, but its nature is purity. The lotus flower has roots in mud, stem in water, flower above the water: a perfect symbol of spiritual practice that transforms the mire of suffering into the flower of wisdom.

The lotus (padma/paduma) is perhaps the most important symbol of Indian spirituality, Buddhist and Hindu alike. Its capacity to bloom in mud without being stained (nīrjara in Jain tradition, anikta in Buddhist) is the model of the sage in the world: present in it, nourished by it, without being contaminated by it.

This verse can only be fully understood with the one that follows. The pause between the two creates a poetic tension: the lotus is beautiful, yes, but what does it have to do with the Buddha’s disciple?