Mandala is the Sanskrit word for circle. The circle is the expression of perfection, equality in all directions, as well as the origin and the culmination of all polygons, containing and underlying them. The circle has always been regarded as a symbol of eternity. Without beginning and without end it stands outside time. The square depicts four cardinal directions in physical space and time.
The earliest mandalas are Paleolithic sun wheel designs that were scratched into rocks about 25,000 years ago. Yogis and priests of early Hinduism and Buddhism marked circles around themselves as representations of their sacred space. Their location in the center of the circle was identified with the center of the world. The sky seemed to be a huge hemispherical tent with holes pierced in it. Altars were considered to be access routes through which spirits could enter and leave the world. And the Pole Star, around which the whole sky revolved, was seen as the divine tent pole.
The mandala is a symbolic replica of the world, a geometric projection of it reduced to an essential pattern. In its geometry it acts like a spiritual or psychological wheel of many spokes, each intersecting with the center. By extension it represents the center of the universe, because the mandala, being the center, is connected to the Cosmic Center or world axis (axis mundi). The axis of the mandala is thus a line of communication between the powers above and humanity below. The mandala is also an aid to the process of becoming at one with the world and the universe in meditation -- the mediator identifies with the center and allows themselves to be transformed by a process of involution.
The stupa can be seen as a sphere merged with the earth with only its upper half exposed. Seen from above the stupa is a mandala. If the mandala is architectonic, and the stupa is a mandala, then the relation of one to the other is a reflective idea wherein one is the image of the other. The stupa is thus an image of the world.
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