Divinity resides within each one and people across cultures have found unique ways to experience and express it. What was once personally experienced and expressed by individuals as bodily and hand gestures or sound and mantric utterances, later became 'Rituals' for others to follow to touch their own divinity by emulating the same.
To view and partake of the ceremonial construction of Buddhist Sand Mandala by Five monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastry in Mundgod, Karnataka over five days at the Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts at New Delhi was a sacred and rare experience for me .Making of the intricately detailed and finely executed Sand Mandalas was not only a meditative ritual but also artistic expression requiring exemplary skill from each of the Lamas involved. To be in the space of the Mandala is in many ways a way to open up own wisdom about life.
The Sand Mandala is a symbol that represents both the mind and body of the Buddha. It is a Tibetan Buddhist Tantric ritual practise of creating a symbolic representation of the universe.
The Tibetan word for Mandala, 'Dkyil-‘khor' , literally means 'that which encircles a center '.Mandalas are related to Tantric doctrines, normally kept secret, and can take many forms from simple diagrams and more elaborate scroll paintings on cloth to complicated patterns of colored sand and large three dimensional carved structures. They embody aspects of the absolute and are tools of meditation, initiation and visualization. According to Tibetan Buddhist history, the purpose, meaning and the techniques involved in the spiritual art of the Sand Mandala painting were taught by Buddha Sakyamuni in the 6th century B. C. in India.
There are many types of mandalas, used for various purposes in both the sutra and tantra practices of Buddhism. Formed of traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, seed syllables, mantras, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool or instrument for innumerable purposes such as to reconsecrate the earth and its inhabitants. Also used for healing purpose, their most profound symbolic value is that they embody the path to the sacred.As a teaching tool and meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism), the monks, after spending days or weeks in creating the intricate pattern of a sand mandala, they brush it together and place in a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala.
In ancient times in Tibet, sand ground from brightly colored stone was often used for making the Mandalas. Today, white stones are ground and dyed with opaque water colors to produce the bright tones found in the sand paintings. The basic colors are white, black, blue, red, yellow, and green. Each of the basic colors have three to four shades- dark, medium and light .
The sand , Chak-pur and the wooden tablet used in sand painting
The basic configuration of a Mandala, which is deceptively simple in appearance, is a ring or circle enclosed in a symmetrical walled palace with a gateway in each wall facing one of four cardinal points of the compass. Sand is traditionally used because it demands great skill to create the Mandala’s exquisite details.Each individual grain of sand is charged with blessings, empowering the completed sand Mandala, 5 to 6 feet in diameter, with a vast store of spiritual energy. The creation of a Sand Mandala is a prayer to a particular meditation deity, who may embody enlightened qualities ranging from compassion to heightened consciousness and bliss.
When constructing a Mandala, the surface is first cleaned and then consecrated. The sand-painting process begins with an opening ceremony, during which the Lamas or Tibetan priests consecrate the site and call forth the forces of goodness. They chant, declare intention, do mudra, asana, pranayama, do visualisations, play music and recite mantra. On the first day, the lamas begin by drawing an outline of the mandala to be painted on a wooden platform. 
Lengths of cords are dipped in wet chalk and then used to mark out an intrinsic system of measurements
The following days see the laying of the colored sands, which is done by pouring the sand from traditional metal funnels called chak-pur. Each monk holds a chak-pur in one hand, while running a metal rod on its serrated surface; the vibration causes the sands to flow like liquid.They begin by working from the center and slowly moving outward. The center is symbolic of the inner meaning or illumination to which one reaches as they see, understand and realize the various outer levels of ignorance hiding it from one.
Every part of the Mandala exists in an intricate interplay with the others. Wherever you focus, the periphery of your vision changes to see the remainder differently. The Mandala does not just lie there. As you look at it, it moves. It seems almost alive.
Mandalas made with fine colored sand have fine detailing made with a very steady hand
The ‘centre’ Lotus, heart of the Sand Mandala
Close up of one of the doorways of the Mandala rich in symbols of the universe
Everything is so deeply interconnected that everything causes everything else. And everything changes, moving as a vast flow of trillions of processes: there is no permanence, no lasting city, no separate and enduring thing -- not even a separate and enduring self. What is Dukkha? To believe otherwise is the main way human beings amplify suffering into a kind of vocation.
Knowing, really knowing these truths can lead to a sense of liberation that embraces joy and sorrow, life and death, daily routine and spiritual depth -- and that connects us compassionately with all beings in this web of existence that creates us as we create it.
And it is possible then to see that the whole vast intricate enterprise of the universe is not meaningless matter but a great sacred whole, a Mandala, of which we are a part, in which all beings are ultimately destined, no matter their struggles to the contrary, to become enlightened.
After completion, the Mandala was ceremonially dismantled and submerged in a body of water, to allow all to know the transitory nature of life.
©2010 Ritu Jain .All Rights Reserved
