The Mandala Roof Balcony of Lhakang Chenmo Monastery, Sakya Town, Tibet, is located on the 2nd to top floor and faces in towards the central open courtyard below. The mandala paintings are subject to a tremendous degree of weathering because they are exposed to the elements with only a roof above them. The subjects of the mandalas follow closely to the iconographic programs of the Shalu and Gyantse Monasteries.

This Hevajra Mandala is a wonderful example of early 14th and 15th century painting. The iconography is crystal clear and every figure can be recognized, identified and understood from the point of view of the Hevajra and Panjarnata Tantras. Greyscale, numbered image and coloured schematics to follow.

This Vajravali Set of Mandala Paintings were created to commemorate the death of the 11th Ngor Khenpo Sanggye Sengge (1504-1569) [TBRC P2510], head of the Ngor sub-school of Sakya. They were commissioned by the 13th Ngor Khenpo Drangti Namkha Palzang (1532-1602) [TBRC P777]. The paintings were made after the death of Sanggye Sengge and even up to several years after. Therefore the date of the creation should properly be between 1569 and likely 1575 at the latest. The set of paintings, following a Newar style, is very late and shows how the Ngorpas of Ngor Ewam Monastery were still invested in the Newar artistic style at this time and even into the early 17th century.

Mandala, Deity Mandala: a circular diagram, highly technical and precise, representing an idealized Tantric Buddhist, Hindu or Bon Meditational Deity - surrounded by an idealized and symbolic universe, the container and contained, animate and inanimate.

Mandalas are painted on cloth, on the ceilings of temples, as murals, fashioned from metal, wood or stone, textiles and sometimes from coloured thread - also meticulously created from coloured sand.

More visuals for Hevajra Mandala HAR #87225. The two visual key pages have been placed alongside the main image with the identification keys for the numbers and colours located below - all on one page.

 

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Paintings of the Hevajra Mandala are quite numerous and at times of a very high artistic quality. This painting from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is one of the finest and best preserved in the world. It was painted in 1461 as recorded by inscription on the reverse of the composition and very likely commissioned at Ngor Monastery in Tsang Province, Tibet.

Reading a mandala is often very difficult without insider knowledge and the benefit of the explanatory literature. Painted mandala compositions are generally read from the center out and then all of the figures immediately outside of the mandala circle, followed by the top register, and then finishing with the bottom register. The important sections of the MFA Hevajra painting have been divided into colours; blue for the essential deities, red for the Eight Great Charnal Grounds, yellow for the lineage teachers and green for the miscellaneous deities added by the donor or artist.

Please let us know if the coloured image is more helpful than the plain 'greyscale and numbered' images that we have previously been using.

This form of the deity represented as the central figure of the mandala painting does not follow the standard appearance for the deity Vajrakila. The subject of the painting is unusual because the first pair of hands of the central figure and for the ten principal surrounding retinue figures do not hold the typical peg 'kila' that Vajrakila is known for. However, the identification of the subject of the painting as Vajrakila is made based on all other iconographic details of the painting, mandala configuration, number of deities, and so fourth. Is there a form of Vajrakila that doesn't hold the peg 'kila'? Is this possibly a mandala of the Protection Wheel 'Raksha Chakra' of Vajrakila?

The Himalayan Art Resources website was certainly a participant in the successful Rubin Museum of Art exhibition Mandala, The Perfect Circle. HAR provided scholarship and essays both for the catalogue publication and wall text on the gallery floor. But what does this all have to do with yaks and mandalas, and what do they have in common? Well, familiar with both the art and the exhibition we have come up with five interesting facts that touch on both the lighter side and the more serious side of the exhibition and Buddhist Tantric art in general. To pursue the yak question see the Five Interesting Facts of the Rubin Museum exhibition. (Also see the Five Myths About Mandalas).

It has become obvious that the subject of mandalas is too large for the current navigation on the site. A new Mandala Resource Page has been created to help navigate and also to highlight examples of the different types of mandalas, their elements, iconography and meaning. More example pages will be added....

Representations of Deity Mandalas are created for many different reasons and probably least of all as 'an artistic aid for meditation' as is commonly believed by many Western scholars. The primary reason for the physical creation of a mandala is to have a visual presence when preparing and conducting a ritual initiation for Tantric Buddhist devotees into a deity yoga meditation practice. Initiations, sometimes called ceremonies or empowerments, require a physical depiction, as stipulated in the Tantric texts, either two dimensional or three dimensional in form, of the deity, the celestial palace and the surrounding lotus petals, vajras and five coloured flames. Sand mandalas and painted wooden mandala plates are good examples of objects used for this ritual function.

Yama Dharmaraja Mandala
Yama Dharmaraja Mandala Elements
Yama Dharmaraja Schematic - Quick Study
Yama Dharmaraja Outline Page
Yama Dharmaraja Main Page

(See an essay on Mandalas: An Introduction, Painting & Sculpture based on the Rubin Museum of Art exhibition Mandala, The Perfect Circle).