The Tantrik Practices in Sri-Vidya

Sri Cakra has rightly regarded as the prince among cakras (cakra-raja). It is best known and most worshipped among hundreds of sacred designs that are prescribed in the traditional lore. Despite this celebrity an air of mystery surrounds this cakra.

The present book gives details of the design the significance of those details the philosophical framework that renders the details relevant the prevailing symbolism and the nature of source materials have been explained based on authoritative texts and traditional understanding.

The book also contains text and English translation of the text sarada Catusatika.

Vidyalankara Sastra Chudamini Sangia Kalaratna Professor Saligrama Krishna Ramachandra Rao is a well known scholar who combines traditional learning with modern research. Well versed in Sanskrit Pali, Ardhamagadhi and several modern Indian languages and acquainted with Tibetan and some European languages he has written extensively on Vedanta Buddhism, Jainism Indian culture. Art and literature. He has written more than sixty books in Kannada a play in Sanskrit and a Pali Commentary on a Buddhist English publications are three vols. Of encyclopedia of Indian iconography Tibetan Tantrik tradition and Tibetan meditation consciousness in Advaita and a series of Six books on Indian temples origins of Indian thought.

Sri Cakra has rightly been regarded as the prince among cakras. It is the best known and most worshipped among hundreds of sacred designs that are prescribed in the traditional lore. Despite this celebrity and air or mystery surrounds this cakra. It is even classed among things the knowledge of which should not be made readily available.

While there is considerable justification for not exposing our religious themes to vulgar gaze and idle curiosity knowledge about them needs to be made available to the earnest seekers. Details concerning Sri-cakra have always been looked upon as precious secrets but there have always been tracts in Sanskrit seeking to explain the details of the cakra their significance the way it is constructed and the manner of its worship. Initiation into its ceremonial worship is of course a matter of personal commitment to a competent guru and must be resorted to in the ritualistic isolation that is prescribed.

The present book carefully avoids the details concerning initiation and the actual worship. They cannot become the subject matters of a book. But the details of the design itself the significance of those details the philosophical framework that renders the details relevant the prevailing symbolisms and the nature of the material have been explained here based on authoritative texts and traditional understanding.

I was fortunate to lay my hands on a little book in Sanskrit but in Telugu characters that was printed sixty years ago dealing with Sri-cakra in a remarkable and unusual manner. Entitled sarads catusatika it is a poetical work prepared in Srngeri and dedicated to the late pontiff Sri-Sri Chandrasekhara-Bharati-mahaswami of sacred memory (who incidentally was my own revered mentor) curiously enough I had seen fragments of the manuscript of this book several years ago with one of the learned attendants of the late pontiff and I had made some effort to get at the entire when this printed book fell into my hands when I was least expecting it.

I have reproduced the original text here and have appended a running translation of the entire text in English. And this is followed by an elaborate account of the ritualistic and symbolic details of Sri-cakra.

I am grateful to daivajna Sri K.N. Somayaji Director of Kalapjaru Research academy for having brought out this book as a publication of his academy I am thankful to Indian books center Delhi for bringing out this second edition of the book.