From: jmcd@painful.sdsu.edu (John McDonald)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan,alt.books.reviews
Subject: The Wheel of Time Sand Mandala (review)
Date: 20 Mar 1995 21:29:29 GMT

The Wheel of Time, by Barry Bryant  (i think that's his name...)
with a foreword by the Dalai Lama  about 260 pages, MANY photographs

Last night i finished reading this colorful and informative book about
the astonishing art of the Kalachakra sand mandala.  The book doesn't
seem to know what level at which to approach the topic.  It is part
ritual description, part art, part cultural history.  As a result it
doesn't do sufficient justice to any of these topics.  I found myself
really wanting more information on the cultural development of this
ritual.  Many questions are left unanswered about this.  The chapter
on the Kalachakra initiation is, by necessity, brief, as all the
meanings and rituals are not public knowledge yet.  The origin of
the Kalachakra is described as a mixture of myth and cultural history.
Niether are completely described.  

However, the book does include many wonderfully detailed images of the
sand mandala and the reader can infer his or her own learning of this
art from these photographs.  The brief description of each of the 
visual elements of the mandala is also interesting, because one can
now look at it and see the different things depicted for what they
are meant to be.

As the only general accessible book on the topic, I would recommend it.

John
=======================================================================
| `A society of "astronomers" would be,  ||   John McDonald           |
| at least on paper, better capable of   ||   SDSU Dept of Astronomy  |
| gauging the proportions of our         ||   jmcd@mintaka.sdsu.edu   |
| existential dilemmas.' ==Paolo Soleri  ||                           |
========================http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/students/jmcd/JMCD.html