Mandala

Origin

Mandalas appear in Hindu sources from the Vedic period as ground-plans for ritual fire altars and as cosmograms of Mount Meru, the cosmic mountain at the centre of the world. The form reaches its most elaborate development in Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, which arose in India between roughly the 6th and 10th centuries CE and was carried to Tibet from the 7th century onward by figures such as Padmasambhava and Atisha. The two foundational Buddhist mandalas are the Garbhadhatu (Womb Realm) and the Vajradhatu (Diamond Realm), preserved most completely in the Japanese Shingon tradition founded by Kukai in the 9th century.

In Tibetan practice, mandalas are constructed of coloured sand by trained monks over days or weeks, then ceremonially dispersed to embody the teaching of impermanence. The Kalachakra mandala, associated with the Wheel of Time tantra, is among the most complex, containing 722 deities arranged on five concentric levels. Western awareness of the mandala expanded dramatically through Carl Gustav Jung, who from 1916 onward drew mandalas spontaneously during his confrontation with the unconscious and later recognised the form in his patients' dreams and drawings. His essay Concerning Mandala Symbolism (1950) established the mandala as a central concept of analytical psychology.

Structure and meaning

A classical Buddhist mandala has several nested levels. The outermost ring is often a circle of flames, marking the boundary between sacred and ordinary, beyond which the uninitiated should not gaze. Within this come rings of vajras (thunderbolts) and lotus petals, then a square palace with four gates oriented to the cardinal directions, each gate guarded by protective deities. The interior of the palace is divided into four or more quadrants, each associated with a colour, an element, a buddha-family, and a wisdom. At the very centre sits the principal deity, sometimes alone, sometimes in sexual union with a consort representing the inseparability of method and wisdom.

To enter a mandala in meditation is to undertake a journey from the periphery of conditioned existence to the centre of awakened presence. The practitioner visualises themselves passing through the outer rings, entering the palace through the appropriate gate, paying respects to each quadrant's deity, and finally identifying with the central figure. The whole structure is then re-absorbed into the practitioner's heart and ultimately dissolved into emptiness. This process is called generation stage and completion stage in tantric terminology and is held to reshape the deep architecture of consciousness over years of practice.

In practice

You can engage with the mandala on many levels. For beginners, the simplest practice is to gaze at a mandala image in a relaxed and receptive state, allowing the geometry to organise your attention and the central point to draw your awareness inward. Ten to twenty minutes is sufficient. Notice how the symmetry of the figure produces a corresponding centredness in your mind. Drawing mandalas yourself, freehand or with compass and ruler, can be a profound meditative practice in its own right, and Jung recommended it as a method for integrating disturbed psychic content. Begin with a circle, divide it into four, and let the rest unfold.

For more committed practice, find a qualified teacher in a living tradition (Tibetan Buddhism, Shingon, certain branches of Hinduism). The visualisation practices of deity yoga should not be undertaken without empowerment and instruction, both because they are technically demanding and because traditional teachers consider them potent. Combine the work with study of related symbols: the yantra, with which the mandala shares its geometric DNA, the meditation practices that ground all such work, and the symbolism of the circle and the centre in your own life and dreams.

Symbolic depth

Jung's observation was that mandalas arise spontaneously in the psyche of people undergoing serious inner development, regardless of cultural background. He found them in the dreams of Swiss children, in the alchemical drawings of European Renaissance manuscripts, in the labyrinths of medieval cathedrals, in Navajo sand paintings, and in the geometric art of Australian aboriginal traditions. The circle quartered by a cross, with a central point, appears so consistently across cultures that he treated it as an archetypal symbol of the Self, the regulating centre of the total personality, transcending the conscious ego. The mandala is thus both a cultural artefact and a psychological universal.

In tarot, the World card depicts a classical mandala: a central dancing figure surrounded by a wreath, framed by the four creatures of the Tetramorph at the corners. The Wheel of Fortune is another mandalic image. The Hindu and Buddhist mandalas resonate with the Christian rose windows, the Islamic geometric domes, and the Renaissance figure of the squared circle (alchemy's quadratura circuli). In astrology, the natal chart is a mandala of your own incarnation, with the twelve houses as quadrants of the wheel. Continue with yantra, Tree of Life, and the complete glossary.

Also known as

• sacred circle
• cosmic diagram
• mandala of the self
• sand mandala
• cosmogram