Kalachakra, "the Wheel of Time" (Tibetan Dükyi Khorlo), is the meditation deity of the Kalachakra Tantra, a teaching of the highest yoga tantra class that appeared in India in the early 11th century. It links the cycles of time in the outer world, the inner cycles of the body and breath, and the path of meditation. Kalachakra stands in union with his consort Vishvamata, the union of method and wisdom, explained also as time joined with the timeless.
How he is shown
- Blue, standing with his red right leg extended and his white left leg bent, on discs of the moon, the sun and Rahu, the eclipse planet, over a lotus.
- Four faces, each with three eyes: the front face dark and fierce, the right red, the left white and the back yellow.
- Twenty-four arms, eight each in black, red and white. His first two hands hold a vajra and a bell crossed behind Vishvamata's back; the others hold weapons and implements such as a sword, trident, bow and arrow, wheel, conch, mirror and the four-faced head of Brahma.
- Numbers that measure time: tradition links his twenty-four hands with the waxing and waning halves of the twelve months, and the 360 joints of his fingers with the days of the year.
- Two figures beneath his feet: red Kamadeva, the god of desire, under his right foot, and white Rudra, a form of Shiva, under his left, while their consorts reach up to his feet. They stand for the delusions he has overcome.
- Vishvamata, "the mother of all", yellow, with four faces and eight arms, embraces him.
The teaching and its history
According to tradition, the Buddha taught the Kalachakra Tantra in South India at the request of King Suchandra of Shambhala, a hidden kingdom where it was kept for generations before returning to India. Historians date the texts we have to the early 11th century. The teaching reached Tibet in the same century and became the basis of the Tibetan calendar, whose sixty-year cycles are counted from 1027. Kalachakra is practised across the Tibetan schools, and especially in the Jonang and Gelug traditions.
The deity and the mandala
Kalachakra initiations are among the few tantric teachings traditionally given to very large public gatherings, and the Dalai Lama has given many of them. For an initiation, his palace is laid out as a mandala, often in coloured sand. The mandala shows that palace from above; our Kalachakra mandala guide explains how to read it. A deity thangka shows Kalachakra himself, standing in union with Vishvamata.
In a painting
Kalachakra is one of the hardest subjects to paint well. Look for twenty-four hands that are clearly separated, each with its own implement, and arms that keep their black, red and white grouping; four faces that stay legible at a small size; and a convincing balance between Kalachakra and Vishvamata, whose own four faces and eight arms must fit within his. The figures beneath his feet are small but should still be finely drawn. Some of our paintings frame the pair with a broad arch of many-coloured bands.
To recognise him at a glance: a blue standing figure with very many arms, embracing a yellow consort, his right leg red and his left leg white.
