Rose flowersSaffronKumkumSandalwood pasteSweetsFruitLotus flowers
Invocation Approach
Tone
Luminous devotional
Address
LalitaShodashiRajarajeshwari
Relationship
The beauty that is also the structure of the world
Warning
The sri vidya is an initiatory path not a borrowed aesthetic
Resonance
Those drawn to sri vidya and to the work of non duality
Symbols
Sri yantraSugarcane bowFlower arrowsNoose and goadMirrorCrescent moon
Mythology Summary
Tripura Sundari - Lalita, Shodashi - is the third Mahavidya and the goddess at the centre of Sri Vidya. The Lalitopakhyana of the Brahmanda Purana tells how she arises from the fire of consciousness (Chidagni) to defeat the asura Bhandasura, and the Lalita Sahasranama is the thousand-name hymn of her tradition, with the Saundarya Lahari as its great devotional poem. She is the beauty of the three cities, the three states and the three worlds, and her diagram is the Sri Yantra.
Modern Practice
Sri Vidya is an initiatory path: the practitioner receives the fifteen- or sixteen-syllable vidya from a guru and worships the Sri Yantra with the Lalita Sahasranama and the Khadgamala. The aesthetic of Sri Vidya - beauty, auspiciousness, non-duality - is often borrowed without the initiation, which the tradition itself does not regard as her worship.