Mandalas show up in many places. Be it a mandala drawing or a mandala tattoo or one formed naturally in nature which you will learn further on. What a mandala is can be a near impossible question to find a solution to. The best way to kick off is by talking about the etymology of the word and its original uses by people.
The word ‘Mandala’ is a Sanskrit word which can be put simply as circle. If you delve deeper into the definition a more specific definition is ‘an integrated structure organized around a unifying centre’. This is a interpretation more similar to the mandala you may see in mandala design or that would be more akin to what you could imagine a mandala tattoo meaning.
most of the first known occurrences known of the creation of a mandala by a person is the Tibetan Buddhist mandala. The word they used for the Buddhist mandala is ‘kyil-khor’. The Buddhist art of creating mandalas was often used before starting meditation. The mandala art they used would represent the reason for the meditation for that day. New points of focus within each topic of meditation lended itself to a new mandala so that the new mandala could be viewed in meditation as a way of sinking into that new point of focus. The Buddhist mandala could also be found in the form of a sand mandala. The monks would take several weeks to draw a lovingly made piece of mandala art in the sand and add colour. After the sand mandala was complete they would disperse the sand into a place with water to break up the mandala design to acknowledge how life is does not last forever while also passing a blessing into the water and showing how the end can also be a beginning.
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