Three-Day Event Includes Cultural Pageant and Prayers for World Peace
Monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastic University in Karnataka, India will create an interfaith sacred sand mandala at Brevard College's Porter Center for Performing Arts Feb. 20-22.
While on campus, the monks will also present a Cultural Pageant and World Peace and Healing Puja, which are chants and prayers. The monks' visit is being co-sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Transylvania County.
Although the events are free and open to the public, a donation is suggested.
An Opening Ceremony at 9 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 20 in the Francis Pavilion of the Porter Center will mark the beginning of the three-day mandala project. During their visit, the team of monks will painstakingly arrange grains of colored sand into the form of a mandala (pronounced mahn-DAH-la). The mandala, which represents peace and harmony between all religions, includes symbols familiar to religions such as Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism and Islam as well as depictions of the four seasons and the natural world.
The College will host public viewings of the sand mandala project from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
A Cultural Pageant will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 20 at the College’s Scott Concert Hall in the Porter Center. The pageant will include ritual dance and other ceremonial routines, including chanting or reciting of time-honored prayers and monastic debate.
A World Peace and Healing Puja will be held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at the College’s Scott Concert Hall in the Porter Center. During the evening, the monks will chant prayers and perform rituals accompanied by symbolic hand gestures, cymbals, drums, horns and flutes.
A Closing Ceremony will be held at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22 along the banks of King’s Creek by the Porter Center for Performing Arts. During the ceremony, the mandala will be dismantled and its sands will be released into the creek.
The Drepung Gomang Monastic University was established after the monks were exiled from Tibet in the Chinese invasion of the 1950s. The Monk’s Sacred Arts tour allows the group to share Tibetan Buddhist teachings, offer sympathy and prayers for the world’s tragedies and raise awareness of the “endangered Tibetan civilization and human rights abuses by the Communist Chinese.
Merchandise such as scarves, beads and clothing, most of which were handmade by the monks, will also be available.
For more information, visit www.gomang.org/2012_tour.html