Dances Of Dance Mandal

Dances

Refuge   Buddhist practitioners take refuge daily in the Buddha,the teacher; the Dharma, the teachings; and the Sangha, the community. In Charya Dance, a practitioner takes refuge through embodiment of these “Three Jewels”- the Buddha as the teacher of meditation, Shakyamuni Buddha; the Dharma teachings as Manjushri wielding his wisdom sword and text; the Sangha as the supportive community in the form of the lord of compassion,

Sodasha Lasya  The sixteen offering dances, also known as Sodasa Lasya in Sanskrit, are sixteen dance postures representing various musical instrument offerings as well as other sense offerings. They are personified as the sixteen goddesses of sensual enjoyment who show honor to the central deities of the mandala through their pure offerings

Avalokiteshvara Avalokiteshvara, also known as Chenresig, Kuan Yin, and Kanzeon, is widely beloved throughout the Buddhist world. He embodies the beauty of universal compassion in its most accessible and recognizable forms: softness, kindness and gentleness

Manjushri The Lord of Wisdom, Manjushri, holds a book and wields a sword to cut through ignorance. He is golden in color and speaks the universal language of all beings to aid them in understanding reality. Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara, and Vajrapani form the trinity that symbolize the importance of wisdom, compassion and power for enlightenment.

Vajrayogini Vajrayogini is a main female Buddha. She is semi-wrathful and bright red, dancing joyfully, without shame or fear and glorifying in her femaleness. She drinks the nectar that fuels her in the intensity and clarity of an uncompromising motivation to cut through ignorance while embracing all accessible energies.

Annapurna Annapurna is the goddess of harvest. In Nepal she is honored as Mother Earth. She is white with three eyes and has a great snake as her vehicle. Her eight arms hold various implements in order to be of benefit to many different kinds of beings.

Rakta Ganesha The Image of Rakta Ganesha (Red Ganesh) is generally found along with Mahakala at the entrance to monasteries in the Kathmandu Valley as a protective deity. He has an elephant head, three eyes and ten arms. This is a mask dance

Singha Mukhi Singha Mukhi is the lion-faced female Buddha. She is red, fearless and very wrathful, emphasizing that enlightenment is not a passionless state, but rather a state of wholeness in which one has access to all the energies and capacities of ones being. This is a mask dance

 Vajrapani Vajrapani is a wrathful Bodhisattva dark blue in color, with bloodshot eyes, and an angry glare. He holds a bell in his left hand and a vajra in his right and wears a tiger-skin garment, snakes wrapping around his body, and ornaments made of bones and skulls. Wrathful deities dance upon the negative forces they have overcome and laugh with glee as they feast on raw painful negativity, the very means to enlightenment.  .

Vajravira Mahakala Mahakala is a wrathful protector deity, dark blue in color and awesome to behold. He is beautiful and splendorous with his short and stout body, huge belly, and angry face. He wears a tiger skin, bone ornaments and snakes and is the destroyer of all fears. Like Vajrapani, he dances upon the negative forces that fuel the path to enlightenment. This is a mask dance.

Mayan Jala  Mayanjala is a dance that is not of a a particular deity but is an expression of the reality of Samsara, or cyclic existence. The Sanskrit term “Mayan Jala” literally means “the net of confusion”. This dance portrays a yogi who sees the suffering of all beings as they wander in the misery of attachment to transient existence.

.Arya Tara Tara is green in color and embodies compassionate activity. She sits in a joyful ease pose with her right leg extended always ready to come to the aid of beings. She gives generously with her right hand and holds a lotus of purity with her left hand at her heart.

 Amoghasiddhi and Arya Tara The goddess Arya Tara and the transcendent Buddha Amoghasiddhi are both green in color and as partners create perfect all-accomplishing activity that benefits others. The feminine energy of foundational wisdom, and the male energy of skillful means, dance and interact in mutual recognition, respect, and harmony.

 Nairatma and Hevajra The Mother of selflessness, Nairatma is blue like the limitless clear blue sky. She is the spontaneous wisdom female energy, empty of all projection and judgment. Her consort, the male energy of blue Hevajra, is a semi-wrathful Buddha manifesting as a great yogi living in the forest. They dance in yogic union of bliss and emptiness.

 Chakrasamvara and Vajravarahi Vajravarahi, a red yogini, is semi-wrathful, and powerful; Chakrasamvara, a forest yogi  who is dark blue in color  and also semi-wrathful, embraces Vajravarahi. They are the union of sun and moon, emptiness and bliss, and of all opposites. Together they intently remain in blissful meditation while they dance on negative forces.