| Image | Author |
 |
Sue Blatt |
 |
Agnes Kukuc |
 |
Jennifer Manaloto |
 |
Elias Martin |
 |
|
 |
Kim McNamara |
 |
Bryan Stednitz |
 |
Laura Stockton |
For the final project in "Yoga and Tantra in Hinduism and Buddhism" (Religious Studies 340, "Inquiries in World Religion," Autumn 1999), students were given the option of either writing an integrating essay or creating a mandala. Traditional mandalas are maps of the cosmos used in meditation. Their visual symbolism often involves homologies between the human body (conceived in terms of the classical Indian system of cakras, or energy zones) and a religious geography of the universe at whose center is a palace with various gods or Buddhas in residence. The painting, sculpture or architectural construction of the mandala is an artistic achievement, but for the practitioner it is both visual text and aid to a meditational journey toward liberation. The practitioner typically builds an interior mandala, though in the traditions this is not considered an effort of the "imagination" but a spiritual discipline. He or she then installs the deities in their appropriate places and then journeys from the periphery to the center (which is also the summit) wherein she encounters the heart of reality.
The students were asked to use this assignment in a way parallel to the integrating essay, in other words "to make a mandala representing this integration of themes which would be faithful to the traditional theory and practice of the mandala, but using elements you have invented (or it might mix traditional and invented elements). The mandala would be accompanied by an explanatory essay, demonstrating that the work has proceeded from an understanding of mandala theory and practice." To do this students would draw on knowledge from various class readings, including Martin Brauen's book The Mandala.
To view larger images of the mandalas (pronounced MUN-dulla) and read explanatory essays by the author, click below.
To view and learn about a classical Tibetan Buddhist mandala, go to the Kalachakra site.
| Image | Author |
| |
Sue Blatt |
| |
Agnes Kukuc |
|
|
Jennifer Manaloto |
| |
Elias Martin |
| |
|
| |
Kim McNamara |
| |
Bryan Stednitz |
| |
Laura Stockton |