Mandala
Original Mandala painting
Second Chakra Mandala
Acryl on paper
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Flower of life
Flower of life
The Flower of Life is the name coined by New Age author Drunvalo Melchizedek for a geometrical figure composed of multiple evenly-spaced,
overlapping circles. This figure,
used as a decorative motiv since ancient times, forms a flower-like pattern with the symmetrical structure of a hexagon.
A "Flower of Life" figure consists of seven or
more overlapping circles, in which the center of each circle is on the
circumference of up to six surrounding circles of the same diameter. However,
the surrounding circles need not be clearly or completely drawn; in fact, some
ancient symbols that are claimed as examples of the Flower of Life contain only
a single circle or hexagon.
New Age followers ascribe many forms of significance to the
Flower of Life and three similar figures, called the "Egg of Life,"
the "Fruit of Life," the "Seed of Life,"and the "Tree
of Life." Melchizedek and others assert that these figures are symbols of sacred geometry, that they represent
ancient spiritual beliefs, and that they depict fundamental aspects of space
and time. They claim that Metatron's
Cube may be derived from the
Flower of Life pattern, and that the Platonic
solids within it were
"thought to act as a template from which all life springs."
The Flower of Life and the Seed of Life are linked by New
Age authors with the Biblical prophet Enoch,
the Archangel Metatron, the six
days of Creation, the Vesica Piscis religious symbol, and Borromean rings.
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Lakshmi
Lakshmi
Hindu art
Lakshmi is the Hindu
Goddess of wealth, prosperity
(both material and spiritual), fortune, and the embodiment of beauty. She is
the consort of the God Vishnu.
Also called Mahalakshmi, she is said to bring good
luck and is believed to protect
her devotees from all kinds of misery and money-related sorrows. Representations of Lakshmi are also
found in Jain monuments.
Lakshmi
is called Shri or Thirumagal because she is endowed with six auspicious
and divine qualities, or Gunas,
and also because she is the source of strength even to Vishnu. When Vishnu
incarnated on earth as avatars Rama and
Krishna, Lakshmi incarnated as his consort. Sita (Rama's wife), Radha (Krishna's lover) and Rukmini and Satyabama are considered forms of Lakshmi.
Lakshmi
is worshipped daily in Hindu homes and commercial establishments as the goddess
of wealth. She also enjoys worship as the consort of Vishnu in many temples.
The festivals of Diwali and Kojagiri
Purnima are celebrated in her
honour.
Vishnu - sacred art
Vishnu
Hindu art
Vishnu is a Vedic Supreme God (including his different avatars) in Hinduism, and is venerated as the Supreme
Being in Vaishnavism. He is also known as Narayana or Hari and is venerated as Purushottama or SupremePurusha in Vedic sacred texts like the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas and the Puranas. He is the Supreme Purusha of Purusha
Sukta.The Vishnu Sahasranama of the Mahabharata declares Vishnu as Paramatman (supreme soul) andParameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as
the All-Pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past,
present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who
supports, sustains and governs the Universe and originates and develops all
elements within.
Vaishnavism sees
Vishnu as the Supreme God, venerated as the Supreme
Being. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate
Vishnu as just one of the five
primary forms of God, namely Shiva,
Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesha; who are all seen as equal
reflections of the one Brahman, rather than as distinct beings. His supreme
status is declared in Hindu sacred texts like the Yajurveda, the Rigveda the Bhagavad
Gita, The Bhagavata Purana and other Sattva Puranas which all declare Vishnu as Supreme
God. Vishnu incarnates on planet
Earth from time to time to eradicate evil forces, to restore the Dharma and to liberate the worthy ones or
devotees from the cycle of births and deaths.
In the Puranas,
Vishnu is described as having the divine blue colour of water-filled clouds and
as having four arms. He is depicted as holding a padma or lotus flower in the lower left
hand, a gada or mace in the lower right hand, a shankha or conch in the upper left hand and a Sudarshana Chakra or discus weapon in the upper right
hand. Vishnu is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a 'Universal
Form' (Vishvarupa or Viraat Purusha) which is beyond
the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination.
Vishnu's eternal and supreme abode beyond the material
universe is called Vaikuntha,
which is also known as Paramdhama, the realm of eternal bliss and happiness,
for the final or highest place for liberated souls. Vaikuntha is situated
beyond the material universe and hence, cannot be perceived or measured by
material science and logic.Vishnu's other abode within the material universe is Ksheera Sagara (the ocean of milk), where he reclines
and rests on Ananta Shesha. It is
the topmost realm in the material universe, even higher than Satyaloka where Brahma resides. Vishnu manages and
sustains the universe from there. Hence, Ksheera Sagara is also sometimes known
as local Vaikuntha of the material universe, which is approachable by demigods
or devas in order to meet the lord in case of any emergency or disturbance in
universal balance.
Mandalay Palace
Mandalay Palace
The Mandalay Palace, located in
Mandalay, Myanmar, is the last
royal palace of the last Burmese monarchy. The palace was
constructed, between 1857 and 1859 as part of King Mindon's founding of the new royal
capital city of Mandalay. The plan of Mandalay Palace largely follows the
traditional Burmese palace design, inside a walled fort surrounded by a moat.
The palace itself is at the centre of the citadel and faces east. All buildings
of the palace are of one storey in height. The number of spires above a
building indicated the importance of the area below.
Mandalay
Palace was the primary royal residence of King Mindon and King Thibaw, the last two kings of the
country. The complex ceased to be a royal residence and seat of government on
28 November 1885 when, during the Third
Anglo-Burmese War, troops of the Burma Field Force entered the palace and
captured the royal family. The British turned the palace compound into Fort Dufferin, named after the then viceroy of India. Throughout the British colonial era, the palace was
seen by the Burmese as the primary symbol sovereignty and identity. Much of the
palace compound was destroyed during World
War II by allied bombing; only
the royal mint and the watch tower survived. A replica of the palace was
rebuilt in the 1990s with some modern materials.
Today,
Mandalay Palace is a primary symbol of Mandalay and a major tourist destination.Mandalay
Palace has been vividly covered in Amitav Ghosh's historical novel The Glass
Palace.
Mandala
Mandala
What is a
Mandala? You may ask is it some kind of magic circle, or maybe a ritual
geometric symbol or is it a mystical symbol only for the lucky initiate? In
some areas we find them described as ;symbols of the cosmic elements, used as
aids for meditation,' as models for certain visualizations', or alternatively
as 'aids to self discovery or to meditation on the transcendental.' In essence a Mandala is a powerfully symmetrical diagram,
concentrated about a centre and generally divided into four quadrants of equal
size; it is built up of concentric circles and squares possessing the same
centre. It is also true that a great many Mandalas are considered as aids to meditation,
visualization and initiation. Carl Gustav Jung in his analysis of the Mandala the 'protective circle' found it to be
"the traditional antidote for chaotic states of mind."
In
India life is still lived close to nature, and it appears unorganized and
therefore chaotic; but in its chaos there seems to be an undercurrent of order.
It is the religious culture the spiritual heritage that makes up the keystone
of the whole super structure of the Indian civilization. It has a highly
philosophical culture. It is here over the ages that the concept of the Mandala has developed no doubt to bring some
order into the seemingly apparent chaotic situation. The ancient tribal creed
has never relinquished its hold on its past, which reflects its continuous
existence through the ages, from evolution to the present.
The
concept of the Mandala was developed and conceived in the
remotest ages and most ancient recesses of Indian history before the advent of
Hinduism or Buddhism. The Concept as a whole encompassed all facets of the
Indian life, a life style and religious heritage, which has made India a
mysterious land, incomprehensible and unintelligible. It was found to have been
equally important in socio-political realms as well as the religio-spiritual.
The influence of the Mandala concept spread all over South-East
Asia, Nepal and Tibet wherever Indian culture spread. It is even suspected that
its influence spread to West Asia and China also. This influence was apparent
in all walks of life especially in the field of administration and religion.
In the tribal primitive
agrarian community the Goddess of Fertility evolved. They worshipped her in the
form of a triangle, which is regarded as an element of Neolithic art. As in any
form of worship it is the mind that links up with the Absolute but on a Mandala, for the worshipper's
consciousness to tread the spiritual path to the ultimate, requires knowledge
and precision. It is an aspect of Tantrism and fundamentally connotes maithuna
(coitus), which terminates in bliss yoga. The
Mandala's main component, the
triangle, is a basic figure in geometry, and hence, seems so modern, yet in
quintessence it is really very old.
There
are in existence many varieties of symbols in India's religious tradition. The
dominant symbols occupy an important position, even in the sacio-religious
system, for their meaning has remained largely unchanged from age to age and
may be said to represent the crystallization of the flowing pattern of rituals
over which it presides. Man lives in a symbolic universe of which language,
myth, art and religion are parts. They are the varied threads, which weave the
symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience. All human progress in
thought and experience refines upon and strengthens this net. Among the
representations of this symbolic universe, the
Mandala is a highly
manifested form is space and transpersonal ecology (sacred ecology) and is
better understood in practical terms of bounded space, for example, pilgrimage
and its related sacred time and sacred performances.
A
prime example of this relationship of the
Mandala concept to the
cultural and social activities of the Hindu populace is Varanasi, which is the
holiest city of Hinduism. According to Rana P B Singh a renowned cartographer
of Benaras Hindu University, 'The complexity distinction and hierarchical
ordering of the pilgrim age mandala are developed in its full form and
still existent and used in practice by the pilgrims. In fact, it can be seen
that Varanasi is one of the ideal cities of celestial archetype where material
expression to that of parallelism among macro-cos-mos, meso-cosmos and
micro-cosmos are still visible.' This is in fact an almost geopolitical as well
as socio-religious relationship, which is formed in the concept of the Mandala when it is related to a city or country
and its cultural activities.
It is
a known fact that before the advent of the Aryan era there was in existence a
vibrant and flourishing agrarian society in the subcontinent. However primitive
it may have been in our eyes still it had managed to achieve levels of
spiritual understanding well in advance of other societies, which surrounded
it. This era was responsible for the advent of Tantrism, which found its place
secured in the even later Aryan Vedic religion, mention of it to be found in
both the Rig Veda and Atharva Veda. Many of its concepts and traditions found
their way into the daily practices of the Hindus.
In
Tantrism, which as we have seen existed much before the Vedic concept of
religion, Yantra (represents the spirit), Mantra (the soul) and Tantra (the
psychic centres). Tantrism even extended its field of influence to the much
later Buddhism. According to the Dalai Lama: 'Mandalas are an aspect of Tantric
Buddhism that due to their colourful complexity, have attracted a great deal of
interest. Taking a variety of forms, from simple diagrams and more elaborate
paintings on cloth to complicated patterns of coloured sand and large
three-dimensional carved structures, mandalas have a profoundly symbolic value.
Tibetans regard them as sacred. To impart the most profound religious truths,
Tantric Buddhism employs pictorial representations with an intensity found in
no other form of Buddhism and scarcely in any other religion.
The
use of the Mandala as a tool to aid in the elimination of
chaos has proven itself over centuries of use. It has provided humankind with a
device easily used if not comprehended to achieve a relationship with and thus
with oneself. This particular presentation of the concept of the Mandala as an instrument of concentration and
inspiration for meditation provides the reader with an insight into the
mystical worlds of the ancients. It allows us once more to try and achieve the
unity our forefathers once enjoyed with their environs. Each Mandala described takes us on a progressive
journey towards our ultimate goal, the discovery of the power within.
For
many this life is but one of many along the road to discovery and
enlightenment, but this does not suggest that we should not even bother to try
and expect the results to come in their own time. Any attempt we make to gain
experience of the unknown can only but enhance the life we lead. It helps us to
become aware of the cosmos within which we exist and will ultimately aid us in
achieving a unity within the self, making us better human beings in the process.
Gaudy Mandala
Gaudy Mandala
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