{"id":8622,"date":"2012-08-06T12:25:10","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T12:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=8622"},"modified":"2012-08-06T12:25:10","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T12:25:10","slug":"dwls-dragon-garden-in-shey-ladakh-for-the-druk-white-lotus-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/dwls-dragon-garden-in-shey-ladakh-for-the-druk-white-lotus-school\/","title":{"rendered":"DWLS Dragon Garden in Shey, Ladakh, for the Druk White Lotus School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"775\" height=\"580\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QQrXxUsz8Uo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe architectural layout of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/garden\/dragon_garden_dwls_druk_white_lotus_school\">Druk White Lotus School<\/a>, designed by Arup Associates, is based on a mandala. In the Sanskrit of the Rig Veda, the sections were called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/history_theory\/garden_landscape_design_articles\/sacred_gardens\/hindu_gardens_lotus_ponds\">mandalas<\/a>, meaning &#8216;cycles&#8217; or &#8216;chapters&#8217;, rather as TS Eliot divided his <em>Four Quartets<\/em> into sections. The Rig Veda poems are often described as hymns and were receited by nomads on ritual occasions. When the nomads became settlers special places, including temples, were designed for rituals and they too became known as mandalas. Hindu and Buddhist sacred places, including stupas, are therefore said to have a mandala plan. In <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mandala#Tibetan_Vajrayana\">Tibetan and Ladakhi culture<\/a>, which are Vajrayana Buddhist, a mandala is interpreted as a diagram which represents the geography of the cosmos.<br \/>\nThe Druk White Lotus School (DWLS) was built in the desert outside Shey, the former capital of Ladakh. The buildings are nearing completion in 2012 and the next stage is to convert the school surroundings from desert to garden and landscape. Since the school was made under the auspices of the Drukpa Lineage, making a &#8216;Dragon Garden&#8217; is appropriate. &#8216;Druk&#8217; means &#8216;Dragon&#8217; and &#8216;Druk-pa&#8217; means &#8216;Dragon-person&#8217;, with the Lineage led by the Gyalwang Drukpa. What form a &#8216;Dragon Garden&#8217; might have is yet to be determined.<br \/>\nThe above video shows a school ritual (a morning assembly) taking place in a Dharma Wheel at the centre of the DWLS Mandala. Note that the children sitting beside the monk are using their hands to form the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mudra\">mudras<\/a>. My impression is of kindly, enthusiastic and warm-hearted children &#8211; and I wish I had a similar impression when looking at school children in london.<br \/>\nMandalas can take many forms and can be made in many ways. The below image shows coloured sands used to make a sand mandala.<br \/>\n<div id=\"attachment_8636\" style=\"width: 785px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8636\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape1\" width=\"775\" height=\"581\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8636\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/sand_mandala_cosmos_landscape11-624x468.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8636\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Vajrayana sand mandala shows the geography of the cosmos -  &#039;Buddha-land&#039;<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<p>A model of the mandala section of the plan for the Druk White Lotus School, by Arup Associates.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8633\" style=\"width: 785px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8633\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala\" width=\"775\" height=\"525\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8633\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala-768x520.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/plan_druk_white_lotus_school_mandala-624x423.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8633\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arup Associates mandala plan for the Druk White Lotus DWLS School in Ladakh<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The architectural layout of the Druk White Lotus School, designed by Arup Associates, is based on a mandala. In the Sanskrit of the Rig Veda, the sections were called mandalas, meaning &#8216;cycles&#8217; or &#8216;chapters&#8217;, rather as TS Eliot divided his Four Quartets into sections. The Rig Veda poems are often described as hymns and were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,7,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}