칼라차크라 만다라에 대한 문헌학적, 도상학적, 해석학적 試論

Abstract

This paper includes some remarks on the Kālacakramaṇḍala, which is probably the most creative and complicated Buddhist maṇḍala ever created. Having jettisoned the previous theoretical interpretations of the maṇḍala, they present the philological, iconographical, and hermeneutical methods for understanding the true meaning of the maṇḍala instead. Most of theoretical interpretations of the maṇḍala tend to separate the maṇḍala from maṇḍala rituals, and distort its true meaning. In other words, they tend to focus on only theory,neglecting practice, the core of any religion, since they rely on maṇḍala symbolism. It is so interesting that the Kālacakra tradition also created a theoretical Mahāsaṃvaramaṇḍala of 73 deities out of the Cakrasaṃvaramaṇḍala of 62 deities, applying the symbolism of the Kālacakramaṇḍala to it in order to show its superiority to the Saṃvara tradition. The explanation of the Vimalaprabhā on the Mahāsaṃvaramaṇḍala is curiously similar to some theoretical interpretations of the Kālacakramaṇḍala. However, the Mahāsaṃvaramaṇḍala is completely separated from its ritual contexts, and consecration ceremony has never been performed on it. In contradistinction to the theoretical interpretations of the maṇḍala, the philological, iconographical, and hermeneutical methods start from the realization that maṇḍala amounts to maṇḍala itself and maṇḍala rituals. Accordingly, these three methods correspond to the three fundamental practices of late Indian Tantric Buddhism, viz., the consecration ceremony (abhiṣeka), the creation stage (utpattikrama),and the perfection stage (utpannakrama/niṣpannakrama). This paper applies this methodology to the Kālacakramaṇḍala as a case study. For this purpose, along with the Kālacakratantra and the Vimalaprabhā, its authoritative commentary, Abhayākaragupta's Vajrāvalī and the Niṣpannayogāvalī is also used in this paper as the primary sources.