Sand mandala (, THL ''kyinkhor''; ) is a

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Prades ...

tradition involving the creation and destruction of

mandala A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid ...

s made from colored

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

. Once complete, the sand mandala's ritualistic dismantling is accompanied by ceremonies and viewing to symbolize Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.

Materials and construction

Historically, the mandala was not created with naturally dyed sand, but granules of crushed colored stone. In modern times, plain white stones are ground down and dyed with opaque inks to achieve the same effect. The monks use a special, extremely dense sand in order to limit interference by things such as wind or sneezes. Before laying down the sand, the monks assigned to the project will draw the geometric measurements associated with the mandala. The sand granules are then applied using small tubes, funnels, and scrapers, called chak-pur, until the desired pattern is achieved. Sand mandalas traditionally take several weeks to build due to the large amount of work involved in laying down the sand in such intricate detail. It is common that a team of monks will work together on the project, creating one section of the diagram at a time, working from the middle outwards.

Themes

The

Kalachakra ''Kālacakra'' () is a Polysemy, polysemic term in Vajrayana, Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism that means "wheel of time" or "time cycles". "''Kālacakra''" is also the name of a series of Buddhist texts and a major practice lineage in History of ...

Mandala for instance, contains 722 deities portrayed within the complex structure and geometry of the mandala itself. Other smaller mandalas, such as the one attributed to Vajrabhairava, contain significantly fewer deities and require less geometry, but still take several days to complete. Like all mandalas, these are meant as two-dimensional representations of what is supposed to be a three-dimensional environment. Various buildings have been suggested to be three-dimensional mandalas, such as Borobodur in Java, Indonesia, and the Bayon in Siem Reap, Cambodia, although no academic consensus on either has yet been reached. Many sand mandala contain a specific outer locality which is clearly identified as a

charnel ground A charnel ground (Sanskrit: श्मशान; IAST: śmaśāna; Tibetan pronunciation: durtrö; ) is an above-ground site for the putrefaction of bodies, generally human, where formerly living tissue is left to decompose uncovered. Although it ...

. The colors for the painting are usually made with naturally colored sand, crushed gypsum (white), yellow ocher, red sandstone, charcoal, and a mixture of charcoal and gypsum (blue). Mixing red and black can make brown, red and white make pink. Other coloring agents include corn meal, flower pollen, or powdered roots and bark.

Ritual destruction

The destruction of a sand mandala is highly ceremonial. Even the deity syllables are removed in a specific order along with the rest of the geometry until at last the mandala has been dismantled to show impermanence. The sand is collected in a jar which is then wrapped in silk and transported to a river (or any place with moving water), where it is released back into nature to disperse the healing energies of the mandala to sentient beings in water and throughout the world.

Notable sand mandala artists

* Losang Samten *

Dalai Lama The Dalai Lama (, ; ) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣识一切瓦齐尔达喇达赖喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shu ...

References

External links