Sri Yantra
A diagram of nine interlocking triangles around a central dot, surrounded by circles and petals. In the Sri Vidya tradition it is the form of the goddess Lalita Tripurasundari, and is worshipped as such.
Meaning
Four of the nine large triangles point upward and five downward, and between them they make 43 smaller triangles. V. D. N. Rao, in a commentary on the Saundaryalahari published by kamakoti.org, notes that it is customary to speak of 44, counting the central dot as one. For the Sri Vidya Temple that dot, the bindu, is where the Divine Mother and Shiva exist in undivided oneness and bliss; the scholar Subhash Kak describes it as the potential of the non-dual Shiva-Shakti. The temple calls the Sri Chakra, the design’s other name, the king of all yantras.
Origin and history
Adi Shankara (788–820) describes the Sri Chakra in verse 11 of the Saundaryalahari, naming its four upward triangles Srikantha and its five downward triangles Shivayuvati. Subhash Kak argues that it is much older, reading a passage of the Svetashvatara Upanishad as a description of it. The goddess of the Sri Chakra, Lalita Tripurasundari, “the playful transcendent beauty of the three cities” in Kak’s rendering, is known from the Brahmanda Purana.
How it is worshipped
The Sri Vidya Temple performs Navavarana Sri Chakra puja on the full-moon day. Navavarana refers to the nine enclosures, or layers, of the design, and in Kak’s account the deities of the nine circuits are worshipped one by one with their names and mantras. The object of worship can be three-dimensional: the temple’s own is a Meru Chakra installed in its main sanctum.
Several goddesses are worshipped with a Sri Chakra in their temples. Rao names Meenakshi, Durga, Bhuvaneshwari and Sharada, as with Durga at Tiruvannamalai and Sharadamba at Sringeri.
The nine enclosures
Rao describes the outer layers: circles of lotus petals, and around them three lines drawn as squares, not circles, like the walls of a compound. Every line and triangle, he writes, has to be drawn to exact measure.
See also
Trishula, Damaru, Shankha, Sudarshana Chakra, Padma, Kalasha.
Sources
- Purnima Sri Chakra Puja and Homam, Sri Vidya Temple
- The Great Goddess Lalita and the Sri Chakra, Swarajya (Subhash Kak)
- Quintessence of Soundarya Lahari, Edited and translated by V. D. N. Rao, kamakoti.org (Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham)
Last reviewed September 24, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research