The Sand Mandala (Tibetan: དཀྱིལ་འཁོར།, Wylie: dkyil 'khor; Chinese: 沙坛城; pinyin: Shā Tánchéng) is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. A sand mandala is ritualistically destroyed once it has been completed and its accompanying ceremonies and viewing are finished to symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.
Part of a series on |
Tibetan Buddhism |
---|
History
|
Schools
|
Key concepts
|
Major figures
|
Practices and attainment
|
Major monasteries
|
Major festivals
|
Texts
|
Art
|
Outline
|
|
Read more about Sand Mandala: Materials and Construction, Themes, Ritual Destruction, Notable Sand Mandala Artists
Famous quotes containing the words sand and/or mandala:
“If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather,
All packed in sand to wait the trump together.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“He prayed more deeply for simple selflessness than he had ever prayed beforeand, feeling an uprush of grace in the very intention, shed the night in his heart and called it light. And walking out of the little church he felt confirmed in not only the worth of his whispered prayer but in the realization, as well, that Christ had become man and not some bell-shaped Corinthian column with volutes for veins and a mandala of stone foliage for a heart.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)