The Kalachakra, or Wheel of Time, mandala is the most elaborate diagram in Tibetan Buddhism: a five-storey palace housing 722 deities, encoding cosmology, astrology, and the subtle-body yogas of the Kalachakra tantra. Monks may spend weeks memorising its chambers before initiation.

Painted versions preserve in mineral colour what sand mandalas create grain by grain for the great Kalachakra empowerments. Expect dense geometry in deep blues and reds with hundreds of precisely drawn deities, each no larger than a fingernail, ringed by the vajra fence and charnel-ground border.