Join us via Zoom for our 2022 Buddhist Studies lecture, supported by the Khyentse Foundation. If you are local to Edinburgh please feel free to attend the event live (no need to book) in the Elizabeth Templeton Lecture Room, New College, Mound Place. Attendees registered via eventbrite will receive the Zoom link a few days before the event.

Abstract:

Among all esoteric Buddhist topics the Vajradhātu mandala, a shorthand for the main mandala of the Compendium of Principles of all Tathāgatas Tantra (Sarvatathāgatatattvasaṃgrahatantra), has a pivotal position. It not only introduced the decisive set of the five esoteric Buddhas, but it also spread across the entire Buddhist world and effectively was the public face of esoteric Buddhism from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. But as is typical for early esoteric Buddhist topics, neither the concept of the five Buddhas nor the mandala itself are static entities. Various ideas of five Buddhas occupying a cosmic space become conflated, local interpretations result in different iconographic solutions, and newer esoteric Buddhist trends impact the interpretation of the mandala itself.

This lecture will introduce the Vajradhātu mandala and its variations across time and space. It will demonstrate the wide relevance of this topic, its importance for a better understanding of the development of mandala depictions, and also how newer esoteric Buddhist ideas impact its appearance in Tibetan Buddhism. It will present expressions of this mandala from across the ancient Buddhist world, and explain the variations of this mandala represented in the early monuments of Alchi Monastery, Ladakh, the murals of which date to the late 12th and early 13th century.

About the speaker: Christian Luczanits is the David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art at the Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research focuses on Buddhist art of India and Tibet, in particular Gandhāran and early western Himalayan art, the latter largely based on extensive field research and documentation done in situ. Christian Luczanits also held visiting professorships at UC Berkeley in 2004/05 (Freeman), at Free University in Berlin 2006–08, and at Stanford University and UC Berkeley (Numata) in the first half of 2010. Before joining SOAS he has been Senior Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. Since joining SOAS he has lead an AHRC-funded research project on “Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Collections Today.”

Image caption: Vajradhātu mandala, Central Tibet, early 12th century; Pigments on cloth, 125 x 125 cm. Private collection (Image courtesy of Rossi & Rossi).

Edinburgh Khyentse Buddhist Studies Lecture 2022: Christian Luczanits