Creating the Universe by Eric Huntington;

Author:Eric Huntington;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780295744070
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2018-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

3.24.Ritual placement of the seven parts of a Tibetan offering maṇḍala. After Kongtrul, The Torch of Certainty, 117

The seven-part treasure-maṇḍala invoked in the verse can also be created as a physical maṇḍala (see fig. I.5), in which case the arrangement is suitably simpler but sometimes strives to maintain the appearance of symmetry (fig. 3.24). Since the sun and moon are not paired with the parasol and banner, their axis can be rotated 45 degrees so that they fall in the intermediate directions, preventing any two cardinal directions from being overweighted with elements.

The greater internal symmetry of the Tibetan maṇḍalas serves as a framework for more three-dimensional representations in both ritual ephemera and artwork. Despite its highest number of elements compared to other variants, the thirty-seven-part maṇḍala also has the highest-order symmetry, comparable to the simplest, five-part version (fig. 3.25). The seventeen-, thirteen-, and twenty-five-part maṇḍalas have essentially the same structure as the thirty-seven-part maṇḍala, reduced variously by the parasol and banner, sun and moon, eight offering goddesses, and eight items in the ring of cakravartin treasures. The seven- and twenty-three-part maṇḍalas have only two-fold symmetry because of the unpaired duo of sun and moon. The twenty-one-part Newar version, with its tripled Meru and outlying sun and moon, is actually the least symmetrical, despite its portrayal in artwork as a circle of nine elements. The regular structure of the thirty-seven-part Tibetan version, akin to the architecture of the threedimensional maṇḍala palace, contributes to the remarkably different realization of the Tibetan offering of objects in material culture.

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