śrīvidyā mantrakūṭanirūpaṇam

Six definitional verses of the Śrīvidyā tradition, gathered here as the single text they were extracted from rather than as six fragments. Two define the pair on which the metaphysics rests — prakāśa, the self-luminous light that is Śiva, and vimarśa, the throbbing self-awareness by whose union alone that light produces, sustains and withdraws a world. Three then name, in code rather than plainly, the segments of the fifteen-syllabled mantra: the vāgbhava kūṭa of speech, the kāmarāja kūṭa of desire, and the śakti kūṭa, which is given by subtraction from the two before it. The last defines the hṛllekhā, the syllable hrīṁ that the third verse directs be appended to the close of each segment, and enumerates the twelve graded stages it contains from bindu to unmanā. None of the six stands on its own.