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The decoration of this coping from the enclosure railing at the Great Stūpa at Bharhut is a testimony to the power of the lotus flower as a metaphor for renewal and regeneration. An embodiment of the life force in Indian religious art, the lotus bloom comes to evoke the purity of the Buddha, emerging radiant and unmarked from an impure world. Here the lotus vine is without beginning or end, emphatically asserting creation from the primordial waters. The principal motif on the coping, the lotus vine encircled the stūpa in an auspicious embrace, instilling good fortune to all who walked the enclosure path.