How to Buy a Mandala?

Few Questions Before Buying

Before buying a mandala, one must have a brief knowledge of:

How must a mandala painting be?

What are the key characteristics and components of a mandala?

What are the different types of mandala paintings and significance of each one of them?

What is your purpose for buying mandala?

Firstly, getting familiar with the different shapes used in the mandalas are important. There is a different kind of mandala available on the market. You cannot choose a random one as your purpose of using mandala might not match with the one you bought.

Deciding on the purpose

These kind of mandala are eye-catching to the viewers as they are circular and floral in design. On top of that, they are painted with bright colours like red, blue, purple, yellow, green which is striking to the eye. Different kinds of Mandala Paintings are also used for decorative purposes and are hanged on the walls of the hotels, museums.

If you are planning to buy a mandala for meditation and concentration purpose buy the one with circular focal points and symmetrical pattern. The example of such mandalas can be a cosmic mandala, mantra mandala, and others. They contain a simple set of colours like blue and white for concentric patterns, or mantras are written in golden colour.

Mandalas for yoga includes the painting showing the position of seven different chakras in our body. Some include the position of Surya Namaskar in the circular frame.

Some people buy mandala for a religious purpose. These kinds of mandala include Green Tara and White Tara that acts as saviour purpose. Shakyamuni Buddha, Medicine Buddha for praying purpose. Shri Yantra mandala for praying goddesses Laxmi and attracting more wealth.

Some mandalas portray our existence and nature. Wheel of Life and Life of Buddha shows a transformation of a human being form normal to the enlightened state. Gazing upon these mandalas helps us realize about our own existence and the purpose of life.

Deciding on Budget

This comes on the top priority. You need to set up the budget. The cost of a mandala might depend on the size and the quality of the painting. The more the quality the higher the price.

Deciding on Size

This thing totally depends on your purpose. It is recommended to buy medium sized (30cm * 30cm) if you are using for meditation. For decoration in the big hall, one might buy big mandala (5ft * 5ft). There are also Mandalas framed in silk around the border. Thus you can decide the size according to the requirement and purpose.

Deciding on Quality

Mandalas are generally of three qualities depending on the skills and the colours used:

• Students
• Intermediate/Professionals
• Masters

The quality of mandalas made by students is of lower quality and hence cheapest. They are beginner level mandala painters and also use simple colours to paint the mandala.

The mandala painted by the professionals are of intermediate level. The lines and shapes are fine but the colours used are not of high quality.

The mandala painted by the masters is the finest one. Each shape is drawn in finest pattern and the colours are of high quality. On top of that, they use gold and silver coatings which make mandala really bright and eye-catching.