We're looking at a very large horizontal work of art painted on both sides in the collection of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art.
This is a painting that illustrates concepts that are explained in Kalachakra Tantra, a system developed in the 11th century in India and then introduced and translated into Tibetan and practiced to this day in Tibetan Buddhism.
Kalachakra means the wheel of time and refers to a cyclical nature of existence within the context of time.
Let's start with the one on the left.
This is an artistic rendering of a very complicated presentation in the Kalachakra Tantra describing the outer universe and its creation.
What we see here are various spheres that appear here to be as circles.
The outer one represents the element of wind, like a cosmic wind in a way.
And then we have another one which represents fire, blue represents water, and then in the center we have a yellow disc which is meant to represent the element of earth the essence of earth is actually gold and on it we have various continents.
According to Kalachakra tradition, we are on this continent which is the red triangle.
In the center And in the very center of this golden disk of Earth is Mount Meru, which is the axis of the whole universe and the mountain that expands upward, tapering wider as it goes.
It is said that on the top of Mount Meru there is the realm of the gods of desire, and above are the other realms of the gods, such as form and formless, expanding upward and wider still.
They are all identified by inscriptions.
This red triangle in the center is actually reproduced here in the largest scale in the next illustration.
And in the very center of it, another segment clearly marked as Per, meaning Tibet, with various regions also marked here.
To the north, there is this great river, and above, the sacred land of Shambhala.
And we actually get to further understand Shambhala if we move to the next image.
And here we have an enlarged version of this little detail of Shambhala we saw in the previous one.
That depicts its main city with the palace, which is also a temple.
And we can also actually see the mandala to the left.
The next and final image shows us the individual human body.
Kalachakra Tantra developed as a system that describes the association between the human body and mind with the external universe.
If we really look carefully, we can see that the colors and details are repeating with the first segment.
We can see again this black sphere from the side.
That's the sphere or the element of wind, and then we have flaming details that refer to the element of fire and waves.
In blue represents the element of water and the yellow representing the element of earth, and then mount meru itself and all of the realms of the gods going all the way to the head.
The concepts in the kalachakra tantra, which these images try to illustrate, are that all of these various elemental particles that create the outer universe are the same that can be found in the human body.
So we've turned the image around and we're going to read it again from left to right.
In this image we have depictions of complex networks or knots, sometimes called chakras, that have astrological correspondences.
As we move to this second figure, again we see these areas.
They're highlighted with circles and these areas are also chakras that correlate with the six elements, and here we can recognize the typical colors.
At the crown, the very top, is the space element.
You see it's kind of white water in the forehead and then fire the throat with the red Earth at the navel, with the yellow and awareness green-blue at the sex organ.
So the 12 chakras at the main joints you can see clearly, are also marked with inscriptions, including even fingers that have various colors.
All these various lines in the wave pattern seem to flow from one chakra to another and because they all have different colors, they all refer to various elements.
So that's how all of the chakras actually linked.
Next, we have two diagrams made of interlocking circles.
We're actually looking at Mount Meru from above.
You can see the movement of the sun along the paths around Mount Meru in alternating patterns over time.
You have to also imagine here that they're not flat circles.
They are more umbrella-like spheres above the Mount Meru.
I think here we should applaud the artists and whoever commissioned this painting in creating this complex But in a way, straightforward composition that explains the view that is part of the color chakra system that everything is interconnected the outside, external universe and internal universe.
And it's, I think, beautifully represented in this painting.
