The Art of the Sand Mandalas

The Art of the Sand Mandalas  If you've ever gotten excited about art, you must see or attend one of the Buddhist monks' rites in Tibet. The monks work for weeks on creating these spectacular grains of sand mandalas and then, and in one fell swoop - destroy it. In Sanskrit the word mandala means "circle" or "center", signifying the existence of the world as creation within a creation, in ever expanding circles. The sand mandalas are a Tibetan Buddhist monk tradition in which beautiful mandalas are made and destroyed to symbolize the temporary state of material nature. The work takes several weeks, and if you aren't convinced this is awesome work, wait till you see the video at the bottom...

In the past, the sand mandalas were not made from naturally colorful sand, but the grains of a broken down local stone.

In the modern era, the monks make use of white stones they color in strong hues to achieve the same effect. Before putting down the sand, the monks sketch the geometric shape and then artfully lay the grains using special small tools.

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