India, Feb. 8 -- Away from the crowds and chaos of the ongoing Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, a quiet, meditative and intensive art practice unfolds at the Himalayan gallery of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS). Four Buddhist monks from the Gyudmed Tantric Monastery in Karnataka are creating an intricate, 4/4 metre sand mandala, before the life-size statue of Maitreya or the Buddha of the future, inside the first-floor gallery.

Seated cross-legged on a slightly raised table, monks Sonam Punchok, Ngodu Tsering, Thupten Tsultrim and Lobzang Choygal are bent over the geometric diagram, which also feature floral and freehand motifs. While they colour the tiny details of the mandala with a copper funnel called a chak-pur, ...