Two Buddhist monks in robes of gold and crimson created a mandala, a religious artwork made of millions of grains of brilliantly colored sand from Feb. 28th through March 21st at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The painstaking installation showed visitors an art form that the Tantric Buddhists of Nepal and Tibet kept secret from the rest of the world until 1988--an art that practitioners of the ancient religion believed inspires feelings of peace, well-being, and wholeness.
This mandala was the introduction to 'Buddhist Art and Ritual from Nepal and Tibet,' which was a two-year exhibition put on by the Ackland Art Museum that the museum borrowed twenty paintings, sculptures, and other sacred objects for. It conveyed the integration of art and ritual that is fundamental to understanding the meanings of these objects as part of living cultural traditions. The works of art in the altar displayed in the exhibition belonged to the 'Vajrayana' path of Buddhist teaching, which is also known as Tantric Buddhism. Flourishing in Nepal and Tibet, this approach to the practice of Buddhism catalyzed the creation of mandalas and other unique works of art. Tantric Buddhism provided disciplines and rituals--interweaving meditation, visualization, and art--for establishing harmony within and unity among all living things. This exhibition examined the context in which scroll paintings, called 'tangkas' (or 'paubhas' in Nepali) and sculptures were created and used by devotees on route to spiritual transformation. Ultimate enlightenment, achieved through the cultivation of wisdom and compassion, was a culminating goal represented in art by the merging of male and female deities.