Mandala
Mandala (Skt. maṇḍala; Tib. དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་, kyilkhor; Wyl. dkyil ‘khor) — mandala can be translated literally as ‘centre and circumference‘. A mandala is generally depicted as a circle which revolves around a centre. On the simplest level, a mandala can be understood to be us, the student or practitioner, and the phenomenal world around us. The word ‘mandala’ also describes an integrated structure that is organized around a central unifying principle.
It also means:
- the sacred environment and dwelling place of a buddha, bodhisattva or deity, together with the deities, which is visualized by the practitioner in tantric practice.
- the two dimensional representation of this environment on cloth or paper, or made of heaps of coloured sand, or three dimensional traditionally made of wood.
- an offering of the entire universe visualized as a pure land with all the inhabitants as pure beings.
See also mandala offering.
Animation
The following animation shows how a two dimensional mandala actually represents the environment, the palace, the seats and the deities. This example is based on the Rigdzin Düpa sadhana.
<swf width="640" height="480">http://www.rigpawiki.org/Media/Video/mandala.swf</swf>
Further Reading
- Brauen, Martin, The Mandala, Sacred Circle in Tibetan Buddhism (Boston: Shambhala, 1997). First Published as Das Mandala: Der Heilige Kreis im tantrischen Buddhismus (Köln: DuMont, 1992)
- Chögyam Trungpa, Orderly Chaos: The Mandala Principle (Boston: Shambhala, 1991/ republished in The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume Six, 2003)
- Chögyam Trungpa, Journey Without Goal (Boston: Shambhala, The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume Four, 2003), Chapter Three: Mandala.
External Links
- 3D pictures and animations of the Kalachakra mandala at the Jonang Foundation.
- Mandala Resource Page at Himalayan Art
- 'Mandalas: An Introduction, Painting & Sculpture' by Jeff Watt
