Mandalas, those beautiful intricate patterned circles that are so fun to color: they are an ancient art. Centuries old. The word mandala is actually a Sanskrit word that means “circle,” but it has significant spiritual meaning. For many, it represents more than a cool shape with a beautiful design in it. It represents life, and structure and the cosmos.
Mandala’s are a part of the Buddhist belief structure. Siddhartha Gautama, the man who eventually became known as Buddha was born in Nepal around 624 B.C. He was a royal prince and is known as The Enlightened One. That is what Buddha means — enlightened. Eventually, Buddhism spread and now it is practiced all over the world. It is especially popular in Tibet, the country to the north of Nepal, where many Buddhist monks live.
And those colorful mandalas are a part of their religious practice. They are important because mandalas represent our relationship with the universe. In fact, they are so significant that Buddhist monks go through rigorous training to make mandalas. Once they finish the training, they use colored sand to make large table-sized mandalas. The monks use a funnel and a metal rod called a chak-pur to place the grains of sand on a table.
While there are many designs to choose from, they all have similar shapes and symbols in them. Before a grain of sand touches the table, the monks bless the site of the mandala and then draw an outline of the design they are going to make. Then they lay the sand. It is not unusual for the monks to spend up to six days making a mandala. Once it is finished, they pray for peace and harmony in the world. Then they sweep up the sand and collect it to throw into the water. For them, it is the process of making the mandala that is valuable — not the finished piece.
Check out these youtube videos (below) of Tibetan monks making mandalas.
For more information please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10084L3Pqsc,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uazRvR9p0w, https:/, www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QItAyepAnI, http://www.mandalaproject.org/, http://www.biography.com/people/buddha-9230587, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/, http://artmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/current/tibet/, http://obviousmag.org/en/archives/2008/10/the_creation_and_destruction_of_a_mandala.html
