WE have already seen that the religious idealism and philosophy of the Arabs were summed up in the pointed arch. What the mihrâb was to the Musulman, the lotus was to the Buddhist and Hindu. The shining lotus flowers floating on the still dark surface of the lake, their manifold petals opening as the sun’s rays touched them at break of day, and closing again at sunset, the roots hidden in the mud beneath, seemed perfect symbols of creation, of divine purity and beauty, of the cosmos evolved from the dark void of chaos and sustained in equilibrium by the cosmic ether, akâsha.
"Chapter II." In Indian Architecture, Its Psychology, Structure, and History from the First Muhannadan Invasion to the Present Day, 14-38. London: John Murray, 1913.