Mudra & the Diamond Spheres

FILM, DANCE, DIALOGUE:
A CELEBRATION OF YEAR ONE RESEARCH

Thursday October 21

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Event Duration: Two Hours

Presenting the role and results of Indic, Newar and Tibetan research involved
in understanding the use of mudra in the Vajradhatu Ritual at Tabo Monastery:

FILM: THREE NEW DANCE FILMS BY THREE PRODUCTION TEAMS
DANCE: SIX LIVE DANCE PERFORMANCES BY TRADITIONAL PRACTITIONERS
DIALOGUE: THREE SCHOLARLY SUMMARIES OF THE YEARS’ WORK

Moderated by Joseph Houseal, Director, Core of Culture
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

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Film

VISUAL POEMS

A visceral artistic screen dance of three ancient sacred movement traditions: Indic, Newar and Tibetan.

These films explore the mysteries, powers and evolution of mudra in tantric Buddhism, in order to Illuminate the performance of the Vajradhatu ritual at Tabo Monastery where Core of Culture will document their ancient ritual within a one thousand-year old UNESCO world heritage site.

Instead of an intellectual explanation of our work this past year in Indic, Newar and Tibetan endangered cultures, our project is offering new short dance films produced by artistic teams in Los Angeles, London, Montana, and Europe.

Dance

LIVE DANCE PERFORMANCES

These live dances explore the mysteries, powers and evolution of mudra in tantric Buddhism, in order to Illuminate the performance of the Vajradhatu ritual at Tabo Monastery where Core of Culture will document their ancient ritual within a one thousand-year old UNESCO world heritage site.

Through embodied explorations four dancers show works exemplifying how ancient dance traditions weave through shifting and evolving contemporary landscapes. Two Classical Indian dancers, a Newar Tantric Buddhist priest, and a former Vajrayana monk use dance as a living research tool providing insight into our work of understanding how ancient transmissions and expressions continue to survive and thrive. Dance demonstrates tantric mudra in action.
The precise and intentional use of dance as research is powerful.

DANCE 1

Auspicious Invocation: Omkarakarini
Classical Indian Orissi dance by Sharon Lowen

DANCE 2

3’30” with Kapittha Mudra
Created and performed by Vena Ramphal

DANCE 3

The 16 Offering Goddesses
Performed by Prajwal Vajracharya. Chanting by Josh Pronto

DANCE 4

A Charya Nritya based on the Nispannayogavali, Mahavairocana
Performed by Prajwal Vajracharya. Chanting by Josh Pronto

DANCE 5

An excerpt from Shawa, the Stag, from Drikung Kagyu cham
Performed by Lama Konchok Lhaskyab and Thinles Norboo of Phyang Monastery, Ladakh

DANCE 6

Mahavairocana Mandala 37 Associated Deity ritual mudra
Vajramaster: Rigzin Wangchuk, Chanting master: Konchok Stogyas, Konchok Chokdrup, Konchok Stanzin and Thinles Norboo

Dialogue

SCHOLARLY SUMMARIES

Distinguished scholars working in the fields of Indic, Newar and Tibetan culture set out the importance of the project work in these fields, and the need to continue work. Dance research and Buddhist studies meet.

Indic research summary: Dr. Ann David, University of Roehampton

Newar research summary: Dr. Miranda Shaw, Professor emerita, University of Richmond

Tibetan research summary: Dr. Elizabeth Tinsley with Professor Lindsay Gilmour, University of California at Irvine

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Hello, World!

About the Initiative

Photo Credit: Tabo Vajradhatu Mandala by Dr. Christian Luczanits

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. In successive years of the 4-year project, parallel rituals and their movement in Japan, Nepal and Java will be compared, revealing new insights into tantric ritual.

The project explores 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.

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.

Mudra & the Diamond Spheres receives lead support from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation
Additional support from the Kipper Family Foundation