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Mandala
A mandala (, ) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. In the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Shinto it is used as a map representing deities, or especially in the case of Shinto, paradises, kami or actual shrines. Hinduism In Hinduism, a basic mandala, also called a '' yantra'', takes the form of a square with four gates containing a circle with a centre point. Each gate is in the general shape of a T. Mandalas often have radial balance. A '' yantra'' is similar to a mandala, usually smaller and using a more limited colour palette. It may be a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition used in '' sadhanas'', puja or meditative rituals, and may incorporate a mantra into its design. It is considered to represent the abode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vajrayana
''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition that emphasizes Eastern esotericism, esoteric practices and rituals aimed at Sudden awakening, rapid spiritual awakening. Emerging between the 5th and 7th centuries CE in medieval India, Vajrayāna incorporates a Tibetan tantric practice, range of techniques, including the use of mantras (sacred sounds), dhāraṇīs (mnemonic codes), mudrās (symbolic hand gestures), mandalas (spiritual diagrams), and the visualization of Buddhist deities, deities and Buddhahood, Buddhas. These practices are designed to transform ordinary experiences into paths toward Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlightenment, often by engaging with aspects of Taṇhā, desire and Dvesha, aversion in a ritualized context. A distinctive feature of Vajrayāna is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' (, , from wikt:ऋच्, ऋच्, "praise" and wikt:वेद, वेद, "knowledge") is an ancient Indian Miscellany, collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Shakala Shakha, Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum. The ''Rigveda'' is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Most scholars believe that the sounds and texts of the ''Rigveda'' have been orally transmitted with precision since the 2nd millennium BCE, through Indian mathematics#Styles of memorisation, methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, though the dates are not confirmed and remain contentious till concrete evidence surfaces. Philolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tantra
Tantra (; ) is an esoteric yogic tradition that developed on the India, Indian subcontinent beginning in the middle of the 1st millennium CE, first within Shaivism and later in Buddhism. The term ''tantra'', in the Greater India, Indian traditions, also means any systematic broadly applicable "text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice". A key feature of these traditions is the use of mantras, and thus they are commonly referred to as Mantramārga ("Path of Mantra") in Hinduism or Mantrayāna ("Mantra Vehicle") and Guhyamantra ("Secret Mantra") in Buddhism. In Buddhism, the Vajrayana traditions are known for tantric ideas and practices, which are based on Indian Tantras (Buddhism), Buddhist Tantras. They include Tibetan Buddhism, Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, Japanese Shingon Buddhism and Nepalese Newar Buddhism. Although Southern Esoteric Buddhism does not directly reference the tantras, its practices and ideas parallel them. In Bud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandpainting
Sandpainting is the art of pouring coloured sands, and powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, or pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed or unfixed sand painting. Unfixed sand paintings have a long established cultural history in numerous social groupings around the globe, and are often temporary, ritual paintings prepared for religious or healing ceremonies. This form of art is also referred to as drypainting. Drypainting is practised by Native Americans in the Southwestern United States, by Tibetan and Buddhist monks, as well as Indigenous Australians, and also by Latin Americans on certain Christian holy days. History Native American sandpainting In the sandpainting of southwestern Native Americans (the most famous of which are the Navajo nown as the Diné, the Medicine Man (or ''Hatałii'') paints loosely upon the ground of a hogan, where the ceremony takes place, or on a buckskin or cloth tarpaulin, by letting the colou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganachakra
A ganacakra ( ' "gathering circle"; ) is also known as tsok, ganapuja, cakrapuja or ganacakrapuja. It is a generic term for various tantric assemblies or feasts, in which practitioners meet to chant mantra, enact mudra, make votive offerings and practice various tantric rituals as part of a ''sādhanā'', or spiritual practice. The ganachakra often comprises a sacramental meal and festivities such as dancing, spirit possession, and trance; the feast generally consisting of materials that were considered forbidden or taboo in medieval India like meat, fish, and wine. As a tantric practice, forms of gaṇacakra are practiced today in Hinduism, Bön and Vajrayāna Buddhism. Professor Miranda Shaw summarises the experience of a ''gaṇacakra'': Samuel holds that: Origins John Woodroffe (writing as Arthur Avalon, 1918) affirms that the panchamrita of Tantra, Hindu and Buddhist traditions are directly related to the Mahābhūta or Five Elements and that the panchamakara is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhism
Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or 5th century Before the Common Era, BCE. It is the Major religious groups, world's fourth-largest religion, with about 500 million followers, known as Buddhists, who comprise four percent of the global population. It arose in the eastern Gangetic plain as a movement in the 5th century BCE, and gradually spread throughout much of Asia. Buddhism has subsequently played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to Western world, the West in the 20th century. According to tradition, the Buddha instructed his followers in a path of bhavana, development which leads to Enlightenment in Buddhism, awakening and moksha, full liberation from ''Duḥkha, dukkha'' (). He regarded this path as a Middle Way between extremes su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Meru
Mount Meru (Sanskrit/Pali: मेरु)—also known as Sumeru, Sineru or Mahāmeru—is a sacred, five-peaked mountain present within Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmologies, revered as the centre of all physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. It is professed to be located at the junction of the four great cosmic continents—Pubbavideha Dīpa, Uttarakuru Dīpa, Amaragoyāna Dīpa and Jambu Dīpa. Despite not having a clearly identified or known geophysical location, Mount Meru is, nevertheless, always thought of as being either in the Himalayan Mountains or the Aravalli Range (in western India). Mount Meru is also mentioned in scriptures of other, external religions to India, such as Taoism—which was influenced, itself, by the arrival of Buddhism in China. Many Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples have been built as symbolic representations of Mount Meru. The "Sumeru Throne" ( :zh:须弥座; ''xūmízuò'') style is a common feature of Chinese pagodas. The highe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddha Mandala
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was born in Lumbini, in what is now Nepal, to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic. After leading a life of mendicancy, asceticism, and meditation, he attained nirvana at Bodh Gayā in what is now India. The Buddha then wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain, teaching and building a monastic order. Buddhist tradition holds he died in Kushinagar and reached ''parinirvana'' ("final release from conditioned existence"). According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth, and suffering. His core teachings are summarized in the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yantra
Yantra (; 'machine'/'contraption') is a geometrical diagram, mainly from the Tantric traditions of the Indian religions. Yantras are used for the worship of deities in temples or at home; as an aid in meditation; and for the benefits believed given by their occult powers based on Hindu astrology and tantric texts. They are also used for adornment of temple floors, due mainly to their aesthetic and symmetric qualities. Specific yantras are traditionally associated with specific deities and/or certain types of energies used for accomplishment of certain tasks or vows that may be either materialistic or spiritual in nature. They become a prime tool in certain sadhanas performed by the sadhaka, the spiritual seeker. Yantras hold great importance in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Representations of the yantra in India have been considered to date back to 11,000–10,000 BCE. The Baghor stone, found in an Upper Paleolithic context in the Son River Valley, is considered the ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian De Vietri
Christian de Vietri (born 14 July 1981) is an Australian artist known for his large-scale public sculptures and traditional artwork based in Śilpaśāstra. In 2024, he published ''Trika Maṇḍala Prakāśa'', the first comprehensive exposition of the mandalas described in Abhinavagupta’s Tantrāloka. Education Christian de Vietri attended Hale School, a boys' secondary school located in the northern suburbs of Perth. In 2001, De Vietri completed a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at Curtin University. He was included annually on the Vice Chancellor's list as an academic commendation during his undergraduate years. As part of his training he then studied online for a graduate diploma from an Art College in Marseilles. De Vietri undertook and graduated from the Columbia University Master of Fine Art program in 2009. As part of this program, he was mentored by the artist Liam Gillick. De Vietri studied Kashmir Śaivism under the tutelage of Christopher H. Wallis, Mark S. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anuttarayoga Tantra
Classes of Tantra in Tibetan Buddhism refers to the categorization of Buddhist tantric scriptures in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism inherited numerous tantras and forms of tantric practice from medieval Indian Buddhist Tantra. There were various ways of categorizing these tantras in India. In Tibet, the Sarma (New Translation) schools categorize tantric scriptures into four classes, while the Nyingma (Ancients) school use six classes of tantra. Sarma ("New Translation") classification The Sarma, "New Translation" schools of Tibetan Buddhism (Gelug, Sakya, Kagyu, Jonang) classify tantric practices and texts into four classes. In this, they follow Indian Tantric Buddhists such as Abhayākara, who makes this distinction in his ''Clusters of Quintessential Instructions''. Tantras are classified according to the capacity of persons, the deities they use, the specific types of methods they employ and how they use desire (''kama'').Tsong-kha-pa, ''The Great Exposition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bindu (symbol)
''Bindu'' () is a Sanskrit word meaning "point", "drop" or "dot". Philosophy In Hindu metaphysics, Bindu is considered the point at which creation begins and may become Henosis, unity. It is also described as "the sacred symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state". Bindu is the point around which the mandala is created, representing the Universe. Bindu is often merged with [seed] (or sperm) and ovum, ova. In the ''Yogachudamani Upanishad'' Bindu is a duality, with a white Bindu representing ''shukla'' (pure) and a red Bindu representing ''maharaj'' (mastery). The white Bindu resides in the ''#Bindu Chakra, bindu visarga'' and is related to Shiva and the Moon, while the red Bindu resides in the ''muladhara'' chakra and is related to Shakti and the Sun. In yoga, the union of these two parts results in the ascension of Kundalini energy, kundalini to the sahasrara. In Tibetan Buddhism Bindu is a component of the subtle body, which is composed of drops (Tibetan: ཐིག་ལ� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
