Srikula (the Shakta tradition of Sri)

Srikula and Kalikula: what “kula” means

Kula means family or lineage. Douglas Brooks notes that Bhaskararaya, in his commentary on the Lalita Sahasranama, explains the word “Kaula” as connected with a family (kula), that which is received in a lineage and through one’s own family; in this sense Srikula means the family of the benign Goddess.

According to Teun Goudriaan, worship in the Kaula tradition is in principle divided into three, according to which Shakti is held supreme: Sri (Tripura), Kali and Tara. In Bengal the difference between Kali and Tara has almost disappeared, and the division that matters today is between Srikula and Kalikula: the first centres on the benign and lovely aspect of the Goddess, the second on her frightening form. Goudriaan writes that the worship of Sri was the first to be systematised and has the most evolved symbolism, and that the guru initiates a disciple into one way or the other according to the disciple’s nature.

According to Brooks, Srikula and Srividya are not the same: the Srikula texts contain much that has nothing to do with Srividya practice, but Srividya is the best-known and most systematic form of this stream.

History in brief

According to Brooks the Srikula Tantras are traced to Kashmir, and the oldest and foremost Srikula Tantra in Sanskrit is the Vamakeshvara Tantra, made of two parts, the Nityashodashikarnava and the Yoginihridaya; Goudriaan places them in the same learned tradition that produced the great works of Kashmir Shaivism. Brooks also notes that a verse of Tirumular’s Tamil Tirumantiram alludes to the fifteen-syllable Srividya mantra. According to Wikipedia (following Brooks), Srikula had become a force in South India by the 7th century.

According to Brooks, South Indian Srividya built its own tradition by adopting and enlarging the Kashmiri canon and joining it to the ethics and outlook of South Indian Brahmin society, and its two most important writers were North Indians by birth: Lakshmidhara, said to have served at the court of the Odisha king Prataparudra Gajapati, who upheld only the “Samaya” way, and Bhaskararaya, an 18th-century Maharashtrian scholar who settled in Tamil Nadu under the patronage of the ruler of Thanjavur.

Beliefs and practice

According to Brooks, Srividya worships the Goddess in three forms: the gross form, Lalita’s image; the subtle form, the Srividya mantra; and the transcendent form, the Sri Chakra, a geometric diagram at whose centre are nine interlocking triangles, held to stand for the Goddess’s creation of the world. Lalita is the supreme Shakti, but always with her consort Shiva, who stands for conscious and eternal reality. According to Wikipedia the Sri Chakra is made in two dimensions (drawn, or engraved in metal) or in a three-dimensional, pyramid-like form called the “Sri Meru”, and is often found installed in South Indian temples.

Within Srividya there are two ways: Kaula and Samaya. According to Brooks, Lakshmidhara’s Samaya way rejects whatever Brahmin custom finds objectionable, such as the five Ms (panchamakara), while Bhaskararaya is the leading exponent of the Kaula way; most of the factional differences in Srividya today turn on this Kaula–Samaya divide. According to Wikipedia, in Srikula every aspect of the Goddess, gentle or fierce, is identified with Lalita.

The Lalita Sahasranama, which by its closing line is part of the dialogue of Hayagriva and Agastya in the Brahmanda Purana, is the tradition’s best-known hymn, and according to Brooks the Srividya mantra is also present in it in hidden form. Tradition attributes the Saundaryalahari to Adi Shankaracharya.

Region and centres

Today Srikula is found mainly in South India. According to Wikipedia (following Brooks) it is the prevalent form of Shaktism in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka. According to Brooks, in the South Lalita is identified with Kamakshi of Kanchipuram, whose image almost matches the descriptions of the Lalitopakhyana and Lalita Sahasranama; the Lalitopakhyana says that Lalita herself appeared at Kanchi as Kamakshi. The Shankara tradition of Kanchi today looks after the Kamakshi temple, and many practitioners link themselves to the Shankara seats of Sringeri or Kanchi.

Where the sources differ

• How many kulas: Goudriaan gives three, Sri, Kali and Tara, of which Kali and Tara have nearly merged in Bengal; Wikipedia and McDaniel give two main streams, Srikula in the South and Kalikula in the northeast.
• Which is older: according to McDaniel Kalikula is usually considered the older tradition, though Srikula traces its origin to the Vedas, and he quotes Goudriaan and Gupta that the beginnings of Kalikula literature go back further than those of Srikula; Goudriaan also writes that the worship of Sri was the first to be systematised.
• Author of the Saundaryalahari: tradition holds the whole text, or at least its last fifty-one verses, to be Adi Shankaracharya’s; Brooks notes that the author of the Sudhavidyodini commentary says it was written by his father Pravarasena, and he dates some related Shakta texts attributed to Shankara well after the 8th-century Shankara.
• Lakshmidhara’s date: Brooks (1992), placing him at the court of the Odisha king Prataparudra Gajapati, writes “15th century”; Wikipedia writes “16th century”.

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