Moments of contemplation find expression in iconography. As the vision becomes vaster and cosmic moments of transcendence involve form, the inner universe works itself into art. The other shore, the insight becomes, rtambhara (Yogasutras 1.48). Living experience flows into the rhapsodic form, an access to the yonder mind of inspiration. The iconic forms are a search of the overflowing of the depths wherein images unify and perfect. This second volume of the Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography shows the vast expanse, the temporal evolution of millennia and the emanation of the ever-evolving realm of the divine, the apparitions of the one into the many. The spontaneity of images unfolds into the store-consciousness (alaya-vijnana) of many countries of Asia. This dictionary is a step to read this tangle of hieroglyphics of Buddhist iconography over the ages and in lands widely apart that have shared the spiritual values of the Tathagata. Theonyms beginning with Amogha open the volume, and it comprises all the entries of the letter B. An-iconic awareness resolves into iconic representation in the creative play of colours of the silk scrolls of East Asia and thankas of Tibet, Mongolia and Buryatia. This dictionary is an effort to provide a guide to the infinite richness of the multiplicity of figures scintillating in colours of deep meaning. The Dictionary of Buddhist Iconography is an endeavour of half a century to identify, classify, describe and delineate the bewildering variation in Buddhist icons. It spans the last twenty centuries, and it is a comparative study of unprecedented geographic variations, besides the ever-evolving visualisations of great masters who introduced extraordinary plurality of divine forms in the dharanis and sadhanas.
