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One Seal Assembly 一印会
Ichi'in-e
This is located in the center of the upper row of the Kongōkai Mandala
While all the sections of the Kongōkai Mandala are unique, The One Seal Assembly is more conspicuously distinct for representing only one Buddha. Not surprisingly, this deity is Dainichi Nyorai (大日如来, Sanskrit: Mahāvairocana ), the supreme manifestation of the Dharma within Esoteric Buddhism.
Because it offers a single deity for contemplation, this section is considered a simpler distillation of the meaning of the mandala as a whole. The observer is made mindful of the idea that Dainichi is regarded as the source of all the other buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Dainichi appears elsewhere in the Diamond Realm Mandala in the very center of the central section (The Perfected Body Assembly).
Note: the textual source believed to form the basis for the Diamond Realm Mandala suggests that the deity represented in the One Seal Assembly ought to have been Kongōsatta (金剛薩捶 Sanskrit: Vajrasattva). Kūkai appears to have replaced this deity with Dainichi in the earliest mandala brought to Japan. Kongōsatta, incidentally, appears in the Four Seals Assembly, where he is positioned to the East of Dainichi.
Here we see Dainichi Nyorai wearing the crown of the Five Buddhas. His long hair is bound and he is seated, in conventional fashion, in the lotus position of a Bodhisattva atop a lotus pedestal. He is adorned with stringed ornaments. A long thin robe is worn across the shoulders and he wears a pleated skirt.
The four vases at the corners contain lotuses nourished with the water of principle.
The most notable feature of his appearance is the mudra (ritual gesture) of his hands. Held before his chest, his right fist clasps the upwardly extended index finger of his left hand. This is known as the "Mudra of Supreme Wisdom" (Japanese: chikenin 知拳印 Sanskrit: Vajra or Bodhyangi mudrā) and is uniquely characteristic of Dainichi. (Though the Womb World Mandala depicts Dainichi with the Dhāyani mudra 禅定印 zenjō-in.)
Though there are several interpretations of the meaning of this mudra, the most widely accepted explanation is that the gesture represents – partly through sexual connotations – the union of perfect knowledge and the imperfect knowledge of the sensible world. The former is represented by Dainichi’s right hand which encloses the deluded knowledge of the world of living creatures.
Another interpretation sees the gestures as a physical imitation of the shape of the "seed letter" (vāṃ; see below) used to represent Dainichi in the Diamond Realm. If this so, we have another representation of Dainichi at the center of the primary representation. This configuration, of course, repeats the radial symmetry of the entire mandala.
