According to Buddhist legend, the Udumbara flower blooms once every 3000 years. The last time it bloomed after the birth of Buddha, and for the last 20 years, its flowering has been observed in different parts of the planet. It is said to herald the coming of a great sage or enlightened one.
This tiny, fragrant flower has a delicate but extremely tough stem. People who have discovered the udumbara in recent years have reported that it does not fade for a long time and straightens after being bent.
It was first discovered on a Buddha statue in a South Korean temple in 1997. In 2010, the state Chinese media reported the flower appeared, calling it heavenly. This is rather unusual for the Chinese media, because the Chinese communist regime officially adheres to the theory of atheism and hardly believes in the coming of a great spiritual leader to Earth. All articles on this topic in the state media were removed shortly after their publication, but they managed to spread on the Chinese Internet.
Udumbara flower blooming on a Buddha statue
Since then, the regime has argued that the Udumbara are lacewing eggs. Although there are some similarities in appearance between lacewing eggs and udumbara, the eggs quickly deteriorate after the larva hatches, and the flowers persist for a long time and give off a scent. The word "Udumbara" itself comes from Sanskrit and means "flower from heaven".
Lacewing eggs
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According to Buddhist legend, the Udumbara heralds the arrival of the Holy King, who "turns the wheel that corrects dharma in the world." He will accept a person of any religious affiliation, offering salvation to all with mercy.
In the eighth volume of Buddhist texts, Phonetics and Interpretation of Huilin, it is said: “The Udumbara flower is a product of supernatural forces; it is a heavenly flower and does not exist in the earthly world. When the Tathagata or the King with the golden wheel comes to the human world, thanks to his great virtue and blessings, the Udumbara flower will bloom."
Chinese grandfather Ding, who lives in Shenyang, has steel pipes in the garden, which is good in itself. True, the pipes need to be cleaned from time to time, but this is also nothing. Dean did the cleaning one day. He was cleaning, cleaning, and then grandfather's hand touched something fluffy. The old man looked and was surprised to find …
… Tiny white flowers growing on a pipe, right on the smooth steel. Exactly 38 flowers with stems thinner than human hair. Dean measured - the diameter of each flower was 1 millimeter.
Grandfather watched the wonderful plants and noticed that the flowers open in the morning and close with the beginning of the sun. The utterly puzzled Dean decided to consult with competent neighbors.
And yet I wonder - why does Dean need such a pipe in the garden? (photo from ananova.com).
They told him that the plant, apparently, is nothing more than the legendary Udumbara flower, which no one has ever seen before (which, however, does not interfere with imagining it, for example, as a giant blue lotus), and the old man, which means that you are very lucky.
And these are photographs of the South Korean Udumbara from 2004 (photo from the site buddhistchannel.tv).
According to legend, Udumbara bloomed for the first time after the birth of Buddha and since then blooms quite rarely - once every three thousand years. Buddhists regard this bloom as a supernatural sign or omen. His grandfather regarded him in the same way: “Without soil, without water! These flowers can bring me luck,”he rejoiced. Well, of course, just 38 Udumbar, grandfather will be happy.
An expert on flowers, Guo Xi-chang, tried to pour a fly in the ointment into the blissful picture, saying that a rare plant is some kind of moss, because it does not happen in the world for flowers to grow without soil and without anything at all. But no one really listened to his words - why moss, if there is an obvious Udumbara.
The website Ananova told the world about the grandfather with flowers on a steel pipe from the Chinese media. The news was brought to the Russian-speaking audience, in particular, by RBC. And yet, a small addition should be made to these messages, about Korea and not only.
In October 2000, monks of one of the Buddhist temples in Seoul noticed a strange thing - 21 small white flowers grew on the forehead of a gilded statue of a deity. Every centimeter tall. People rushed to gaze at the miracle - more than 7 thousand people. It is understandable, Udumbara blooms infrequently.
In September 2006, New Tang Dynasty TV, a Chinese TV company, spoke about Udumbar (photo from ntdtv.com).
However, the next flowering had to wait not three thousand years, but only four years: in October 2004 in Seoul, on the building of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), Udumbara was discovered at the fifth and seventh floors. In general, the sacred plant from time to time pleases the inhabitants of the Earth with its appearance in the most unexpected places, and the old man with a pipe is just the freshest example of this.
Flowers by a statue in a Buddhist temple. China
photo from the site ntdtv.com
Now back to the flower expert Go Xi-chan, who said something about moss. He was wrong, because the white flowers are (surprise surprise!) Insect eggs. Moreover, the insect is the most common, it is called the common lacewing (Chrysopa carnea).
The white flowers on which the lacewing is located are real and do not grow on steel pipes (photo from insektenfotos.de).
The larvae of this retina-winged creature are cannibalistic - they devour the laid eggs. Therefore, the lacewing "figured out" how to save one part of the offspring from the other: her white embryos stand on thin, hair-like stems, as if on legs.
Agree, these eggs are very, very similar to the "flowers" of grandfather Dean (photo from life.uiuc.edu).
Usually eggs are laid in shady and humid places: on the bark, leaves and stems of plants. But judging by the Korean and Chinese stories, they can appear on other surfaces as well.
As for the case with old man Dean, there is one problem: his "flowers" opened and closed, but this does not happen with eggs. In all other respects, the exact similarity of "Udumbara" with insect eggs.