East Asia: Later Buddhist Japan
The nine-fold Vajradhatu mandala (Kongokai mandara), To-ji (Koogokoku-ji)
, late 9th century. Essentially a nine-fold repetition of the same mandala,
the Vajradhatu mandala leads the practitioner to enlightenment and then
into the Samaya or teaching modality of the Buddhist priest. The 37 deities
of the Karma mandala (center) are reduced to the ultimate reality in the
image of Vairocana (top center) and then expanded to develop the teaching
methodologies (bottom right).
