Mandala

Round mandala thanka painting is wonderful piece of art. In the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, sacred art often takes as a mandala form.
In sanskrit, mandala or circle is known as a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism,that represents the universe.
Mandala is taken as sacred space and also as an abode of fully realized beings or deities.
A circle which is device for the Tantric meditation. It has a spiritual and ritual significance.
In all cultures, human beings have tried a lot to order their relationships with the cosmos & to systematize nature & the natural phenomena around them.Relationships with the cosmos can be most clearly seen in the mandala .
Mandala literally means “magic circle”or “ring “. Mandala is regarded as a place separated and protected from the ever changing and impure outer world of samsara.
In practice, it is a geometric pattern of squares & concentric circles as a projection of the cosmos.The basic form of mandalas
is square with four gates containing a circle with a center point.
A temple floor plan can be seen as a duplicate of this projection. This concentrization of an idea is strongly developed in the stupa.
A stupa is an architectonic ,three dimensional rendering (cause to become)of the universe.
The stupa is the symbol of death,namely of conquering death,thus escaping samsara.
On a two dimensional mandala ,the same thing happens,although one takes a visual,rather than physical,walk to the core of understanding.
From the outside of the presentation the believer moves by way of the depicted group of deities toward the center of the mandala where the major deity or a symbol is the ultimate goal.
Like the stupa, a mandala is a psychogram.Originally the mandala was a cosmogram.
The mandala also represents the disintegration & then reintegration of one’s own consciousness. A representation of the unconscious, self mandala enables one to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.
Believers can also identify with the goal by way of yoga.Instead of making use of an aid that has physical form,like a thangka or an image of a deity,one can take one’s own body as the point of departure to attain unity with the divine .
By means of concentrated energy rising up along the spine,one attains the apothesis (model of excellence)of the process of union in a lotus shapes mandala at the crown of one’s head.This is where light breaks through the spiritual darkness.This thought behind this is that, according to the tantras,humans are vessels full of ignorance ,but also vessels with a divine spark in their most profound (emotional)depths.It is invisible due to the darkness of ignorance ,but is the same as the heavenly essence .
Yoga means linking or thinking of body & spirit or spirit & cosmos.
Still another symbol of this union is combining the vajra & ghanta.
A place of nirvana and peace.