A Sannyasi's Mandala

Ishvara said

By the rules the ground must be tested for colour, smell and taste, and a spot chosen that appeals to the mind, covered by a canopy and not open to the sky. The ground is scrubbed until it is like a mirror's surface. A square with edges two aratnis long is drawn. A palm leaf is used to measure thirteen equal parts along each edge. Leaving the leaf there he sits facing west. A coloured thread is firmly tied along the eastern edge, and threads fixed in the four directions, east to west and north to south, so that one hundred and sixty-nine squares are marked out. The middle square is the pericarp. The eight squares immediately around it are called the eight petals, all coloured white. The pericarp is yellow with a red circle inside it. Starting with Indra's petal on the right, the lines between the squares are coloured alternately red and black. Inside the pericarp a yantra expressing the meaning of Pranava is drawn, with a pedestal below, Shrikantha above it, Amaresha above that and Mahakala in the centre, a staff above and Ishvara etched above that. The pedestal is black, Shrikantha yellow, Amaresha red and Mahakala black; the staff is smoky and Ishvara white. When the etching is done, Sadya surrounds Amaresha. Ishvari, Ishana can be known only when nada rises. Starting from Agni's direction the squares are coloured in order. The four corner squares are filled white and the first four letters of the alphabet are drawn in them in red mineral; filled so, they are thought of as doors. The two squares next to each corner are filled yellow. In Agni's cell, between two yellow squares, an eight-petalled lotus is drawn, red with a yellow pericarp, and "ha" with bindu is written inside. Likewise in Nirriti's cell an eight-petalled lotus is drawn, red with yellow pericarp and filaments, and a bija mantra made of the third letter of the sha-group and two vowels, with bindu and nada, is written inside, supreme among bija mantras. In Ishana's cell likewise a lotus is drawn with the third letter of the ka-group and the fifth vowel, with bindu and nada. Then, daughter of the mountain, starting from the east, the outer squares are taken up, five cells at a time, the middle one with a yellow pericarp and a red circle around it; one who knows the rules of drawing colours the petals red and fills the gaps outside the petals black, and the corners from Agni on are filled white. On the east a black hexagon with six bindus is drawn, the three triangles on the south red, the three on the north white, and a yellow half-moon on the west. In the four corner squares four bija mantras are written in order: the bindu on the east white, the one in the south black, the northern red, the western another, and Aumkara yellow. The text then gives the order of colours for the rows below, yellow, white, red and black, then white, black, yellow, red, with the bottom triangle red, white and yellow, and says the same order is followed when starting from the south. For the outside cells colouring begins at the east and ends in the middle, with yellow, red, black, blue, white and yellow; the hexagon is coloured red, blue, white, red, black and red from Agni's direction. One may begin and end at various corners, Nirriti's to Agni's, Varuna's to the south, Vayu's to Nirriti's, Soma's to Varuna's or Ishana's to Vayu's. Ishvara said he had thus described the rules for drawing a mandala. Having drawn it, the mendicant must control himself and attentively worship Surya.