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TIBETAN
ART Page 10
Although we most often see a mandala in two dimensions, painted
on a wall or thangka or created on a floor or flat surface, it is
meant to be visualized as a three-dimensional structure, for which
it is effectively a blueprint.
Mandalas
are sometimes, although more rarely, created three-dimensionally,
sometimes in bronze. The great stupa of Borobodur in Indonesia is
a gigantic stone mandala. (The origins of the stupa have been linked
to ancient cultures, such as the Mesopotamian Ziggurat, also a cosmogram
of the universe, layered into a certain number of terraces with
astrological correspondence.) Because of the ancient correlation
of the royal and the sacred, of the king endowed with priestly functions,
and of gods in royal capacities (e.g., Zeus/Jupiter or Indra), the
mandala is thought of as both palace and temple, or even as a royal
city, or, in two-dimensional form, as the blueprint for such a palace
or temple. Indeed, Shakyamuni is termed Chakravartin, the Universal
Monarch. In the center of the mandala, the deity sits in splendor
upon a throne, surrounded by supporting divinities, like an earthly
king surrounded by his court, in princely dress and ornaments. That
a mandala should be thought of as a blueprint is more than an abstract
conceit, since liberation is not given by grace, but must be achieved
by concentrated effort, by action both mental and spiritual. The
participant makes his or her way by a gradation of steps into and
through the palace/temple to the presiding deity at the center.
Just as there are deities almost without number, there is a profusion
of mandalas, although each conforms to the basic format of symmetry
and concentricity. Again, this is not because artists wished to
outdo each other in devising and designing new patterns of the form.
Rather, each of the five Buddha "families" (the Dhyani-Buddhas)
has its own special mandala, as does the presiding deity, and there
are other mandalas for the other gods in their multiple manifestations
and emanations. Various mandalas are appropriate to particular persons,
to the spiritual condition the adherent wishes to achieve, or to
the particular obstruction that he/she wishes to overcome -- not
by repression but through transfiguration -- such as passion, anger,
greed, etc. A neophyte must undergo a tantric initiation during
which, with the help of a guru, the person's Buddha family is determined,
and a mandala is chosen that corresponds to that family.
Thus we approach the function and the practice of the mandala. Its
meaning returns us to yoga, and the tantrist philosophy that underlies
Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism. The mandala is a yogic painting,
and the goal of yoga is union with the supreme essence, the One,
the All, the Absolute. And the object of the Buddhist practitioner
is to become one with the god of the mandala, the deity at its center.
If successful, this is the power conferred by the mandala: transformation
into the divine being and thus sublimation into the spiritual state
of which that deity is the symbol.
In a further layer of conceptual complexity, the transformation
thus achieved is found within the self. In this belief, the microcosm
and the macrocosm are held to be one. The human body itself is considered
a mandala, and because of this correspondence between the microcosm
and the macrocosm, the individual can correspond to a divinity.
The Buddha-essence or Buddha-nature is already latent within each
person: the task is to reveal it. In serving as a channel for transformation,
the mandala offers a means of re-integration into the state of Buddhahood.
None of this happens by simply looking at a mandala; as mentioned
above, the process is active, not passive. The practitioner uses
a set of mental and spiritual exercises in order to recreate within
the mind what the mandala symbolizes and thus to achieve that spiritual
condition. Here it is necessary to consider the conventional format
of the mandala.
Its outer border is a circle, usually a set of concentric outer
rings. Within the innermost ring is, most often, a square, which
is itself often dissected by two diagonal lines into four triangles.
This inner square corresponds to the palace of the deity, within
which is an inner circle, the seat of the divinity. The diagonal
lines through it have been interpreted to symbolize the axis mundi,
Sumeru -- the cosmic mountain at the center of the universe -- and
the human spinal column, the microcosm assimilated to the macrocosm.
The palace (represented by the inner square) has four T-shaped gates
or portals, each surmounted by a torana or triumphal arch, Above
these gates appear certain conventional images and ornaments, both
symbolic and ornamental, as befits a palace both royal and divine.
A disk represents the wheel of the law, two gazelles symbolize the
deer park in which the Buddha Shakyamuni gave his first teachings,
the parasol is the insignia of royalty, as are the ornamental streamers
and strings of pearls, etc.
This structure is used to guide the practitioner through the psychic
process of the mandala. Through a set of meditations, with the blueprint
of the mandala as a structural support, the adept enters the mandala
by passing through the outer rings, then enters the palace through
one of its portals, and proceeds by stages to the inner sanctum,
to the throne itself and the deity upon it, and then, achieving
through intense concentration the supreme transformation, becomes
one with the divinity and that which the god represents.
The solitary adept may "enter" the mandala and undertake
the process independently, in concentrated meditation, but the neophyte
requires initiation and the help of a guru. These initiation rituals
are complex and elaborate. As they dealt with a rather magical process
and the acquisition of powers, they involved secrecy and were reserved
for those who were initiated into the tantra through its mandala.
There are particular initiation rituals for particular tantras.
With appropriate sacraments, the guru or master prepares the student,
who must have the intention of using the powers he will gain not
for his own salvation, but to help all other beings, thus following
the way of the Bodhisattva. Initiation into the mandala proceeds
by stages, including a water initiation, resembling baptism, and
another in which the neophyte is crowned, reflecting the correspondence
between the sacred and the royal.
Although the Kalachakra Tantra is only one of the many tantras,
it has become the best-known because the Dalai Lama has been traveling
around the world giving the Kalachakra initiation. Before the ceremony
(which lasts for several days), the space on which the mandala will
be constructed and the monks who will create it are purified. The
monks then construct the Kalachakra mandala according to special
rites and in the exact design, proportion, coloration, etc., of
this particular mandala.
Since these are mass events, held in theaters, stadiums, or vast
outdoor spaces, attracting thousands of people, the rites cannot
be performed as they were designed, for the individual supplicant
or neophyte who would take part in the ritual. Instead, they are
enacted symbolically for the crowd. Many of those who attend simply
want to be in the presence of His Holiness (whom they will most
likely only glimpse from a great distance), and may have only the
vaguest understanding of what is transpiring. But it is worth understanding,
if not the entire process and its complex, esoteric symbology, that
there is an ordered structure to the initiation, and that the tantra
and its mandala are indivisible. Since the crowd cannot pass as
individuals through the stages of the initiation, the Dalai Lama
uses these events as a mass teaching, stripping away the arcane
and esoteric, interpreting the Kalachakra's basic concept and message.
Tucci considered such rites of initiation as being "liturgical
dramas," (one may think of medieval mystery plays), during
which, at the decisive phase, the divine force descends into the
master, who can then confer it upon the student.
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