Mudra & the Diamond Spheres
Part One

Lecture series with Sharon Lowen, Prajwal Vajracharya,
Dr. Thinles Dorje and Dr. Christian Luczanits

Introduced by Dr. Donald Lopez
Moderated by Joseph Houseal

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Core of Culture’s international cultural preservation initiative
With lead support from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation
Additional support from the Kipper Family Foundation

ABOUT THE INITIATIVE

Mudra and the Diamond Spheres is a four-year initiative of Core of Culture, an organization assisting the preservation of Buddhist ritual heritage in dance and movement.

In 2019, Kanden Rinpoche, the Abbot of Tabo monastery in Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, asked Core of Culture to document the Vajradhatu Ritual performed there by the monks. What is remarkable is that the 11th century Assembly Hall at Tabo monastery is a three-dimensional Vajradhatu Mandala, comprised of murals, a ceiling, bas relief and sculpture. The monks perform the Vajradhatu ritual within the Vajradhatu Mandala.

Integral to the Vajradhatu ritual are thirty-seven unique mudra, or hand gestures correlating to the Vajradhatu deities, which are visualized by the meditating monks during the ritual. The Vajradhatu is the Diamond Sphere, a Mahayana Buddhist concept of the cosmos defined by aspects of the Buddha. It is an old extant Tantric Buddhist ritual, before the time of sectarian monasticism. Tabo monastery itself is the oldest operational monastery in India and the Himalayas, and a rare lasting example of  10th century monastic architecture, and  splendid art of the Guge period. Tabo was founded in 996 by the Great Translator Richen Zangpo. Tabo is most famous as a site of translation of the Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan.

The transmission of mudra was essential to the spread of Buddhist practice and art. In 2005, His Holiness the Dalai Lama re-introduced the Vajradhatu ritual to Tabo monastery, in a way restoring it to one of its early settings, away from which its practice had fallen. Knowledge of the Assembly Hall iconography and purpose were revived. As part of the planned Vajradhatu documentation process, a research program into the nature and transmission of mudra has been developed uniting monks, western scholars, art historians, tantric priests, Classical Indian dancers, and students of Buddhism. 

This project inaugurates with a Speaker Series by the research team members to launch Part One: Mudra Research Project. It will explore various traditions of transmitting mudra for the purposes of cultivating the mind, and take a first look connecting the art and texts associated with Tabo to the living ritual and ancient practice, newly introduced. The project constituents, research team, and audience are professionally diverse in many ways with various relationships to movement, art and texts. Brokering new conversations across disciplines, and finding ways to share modalities of spiritual and scholarly knowledge are goals of Mudra and the Diamond Spheres. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Donald Lopez is the Arthur E. Link Distinguished University Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan, where he also serves as chair of the Michigan Society of Fellows. His publications fall into four areas: Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, the European encounter with Buddhism, the life and works of Gendun Chopel (1903-1951), and anthologies and reference works. His recent books include Gendun Chopel: Tibet’s Modern Visionary, Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra (with Jacqueline Stone), and Beautiful Adornment of Mount Meru, a translation of Changkya Rolpai Dorjé’s grub mtha’. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (with Robert Buswell) won the Dartmouth Medal for best reference work of 2014. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000

Sharon Lowen is a renowned performing artist of Odissi, Manipuri and Chhau.  She has bridged cultures performing extensively throughout India and internationally while contributing new choreography, teaching and curating seminars to maintain and support the transmission of tradition. She has become an icon inspiring Indians to value their dance heritage over the decades since she arrived in India as a Fulbright scholar from the University of Michigan. Her books include, Odissi Dance, The Dancing Phenomenon: Kelucharan Mohapatra, The Performing Arts of India –Development and Spread Across the Globe, Art Without Frontiers – Classical Dance and Music of India and Shringara in Classical Indian Dance. She is the founder of Manasa - Art Without Frontiers. Honors include the 1991 Prime Minister’s award Acharya Narendra Dev Sarokar Samajic Samman, the Delhi Government's Sahitya Kala Parishad's Parishad Samman '92 for Outstanding Individual Contribution to Indian Arts, Prabasi Odia Samman 2018 and Prabasi Bhasha Samman 2019.

Prajwal Ratna Vajracharya is a 35th generation Tantric Buddhist priest from Nepal and ritual master of the Charya Nritya dance tradition and other ritual forms. Prajwal began his training in Charya Nritya, the dance aspect of Newar Buddhism, from the age of eight, receiving formal instruction from his father, the Buddhist scholar and ritual master Ratna Kaji Vajracharya. Prajwal Vajracharya is now the foremost teacher, practitioner, and performer of the tradition. He is a veteran of several world tours. He teaches beginning and advanced students around the globe. He founded Dance Mandal in 1996, and the  Foundation for Sacred Buddhist Arts of Nepal to preserve and expand this rare ancient form of Buddhism and its related traditions.

Dr. Thinles Dorje is a scholar of Buddhist ritual, completing his Phd at the University of the Punjab. He conducts field research for Core of Culture, and is a founding member of Himalaya House, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of Himalayan culture. Formerly a monk, now an activist for Ladakhi culture, Dr. Thinles Dorje also works as a translator, writer and expedition leader.

Dr. Christian Luczanits is David L. Snellgrove Senior Lecturer in Tibetan and Buddhist Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research focuses on Buddhist art of India and Tibet. He has extensively published on Gandharan, Western Himalayan and early Tibetan art and curated a number of exhibitions. Before joining SOAS, he also was teaching at the University of Vienna, UC Berkeley, Free University in Berlin, UC Santa Barbara, and Stanford University, and worked as Senior Curator at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York.

Mudra & the diamond spheres
part TWO

July 2021

Featuring:
Prajwal Vajracharya
Dr. Thinles Dorje
Dr. Vena Ramphal

Core of Culture’s Mudra & the Diamond Spheres
With lead support from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation
Additional support from the Kipper Family Foundation