A mandala is a special picture built around a circle, often with a square and careful patterns inside. In Hindu and Buddhist practice it stands for the whole universe — an ordered world in one shape. People may paint one, make one from coloured sand, or hold one in the mind while they sit still. Sand mandalas are often swept away when the work is finished; the making is the point, not keeping the picture. In English today the word is also used more loosely for any circular, calm, “spiritual-looking” design — a yoga-studio wall, a colouring book — and that looser use is common, though it has drifted from the religious one.