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The śākta lens on the map: the Śrīcakra as cosmology and body at once, the bindu that has position without extension, kāmakalā, Tripurasundarī as the fourth state, and the two śākta streams.
This lens lights 9 points on the shared cross-section rather than replacing it. Every record below names its source, and carries one of three tags: classical where a named text can be cited, later addition where an idea is modern and is said to be modern, and sources differ where the tradition itself disagrees.
The outermost enclosure: a square of three concentric ramparts with four gates, one to each direction.
It carries the ten siddhi-devīs and the eight mātṛkās, and its cakra-name is Trailokya-mohana, "that which enchants the three worlds." In the outward-in reading it is where the ascent begins.
Source: Yoginīhṛdaya; Nityotsava; Bhāskararāya, Setubandha
Nine enclosures — a square rampart, two lotus rings, and five interlocking triangle-figures around a central point. The whole is read either outward from the point or inward toward it, and the direction of reading changes what the diagram is claimed to be.
The figure is simultaneously a cosmology, a body and a mantra. Each āvaraṇa carries a cakra-name, a class of yoginīs, a presiding śakti and a siddhi; the practitioner is said to be located at each ring in turn. The interlocking triangles are conventionally counted as four upward and five downward, though manuscripts and reconstructions disagree on the exact geometry.
Source: Yoginīhṛdaya with Amṛtānanda’s Dīpikā; Nityāṣoḍaśikārṇava with Bhāskararāya’s Setubandha; Tantrarāja Tantra
A single downward-pointing triangle, the eighth enclosure, immediately surrounding the point.
Its three corners are read as the three powers — will, knowledge and action — and as the three cities of Tripurasundarī. It is the last enclosure that still has extension.
Source: Yoginīhṛdaya; Nityāṣoḍaśikārṇava; Tripurā Upaniṣad
Two families of śākta practice: Śrīkula, centred on Tripurasundarī, and Kālīkula, centred on Kālī.
Śrīkula is characterised as radiant, ordered and householder-compatible; Kālīkula as fierce, transgressive and cremation-ground oriented. The division is a scholarly convenience as much as a lived one.
Source: Comparative śākta literature; Bhāskararāya; scholarship on Kaula transmission
The fifteen-syllable root mantra, in three clusters, and its sixteen-syllable expansion.
The three clusters are correlated with the three powers, the three states and the three points of kāmakalā, so the mantra, the goddess and the diagram are treated as one object under three descriptions.
Source: Nityāṣoḍaśikārṇava; Parāśurāma Kalpasūtra; Bhāskararāya, Varivasyā-rahasya
The outward-in order of reading: from the earth citadel toward the point, dissolution rather than emanation.
Its opposite, sṛṣṭi krama, reads the same figure from the point outward as creation. A third, sthiti krama, holds the middle.
Source: Yoginīhṛdaya; Bhāskararāya, Setubandha; Nityotsava
The presiding goddess of the Śrīcakra. "Tripura" is glossed as the three cities.
The three cities are read as the waking, dreaming and deep-sleep states, and she as the fourth that is not one of the three.
Source: Lalitā Sahasranāma; Tripurā Upaniṣad; Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa; Bhāskararāya
A figure of three points with a subtle seed of sound, read as the first differentiation emerging from the undifferentiated bindu.
The three points are given as fire, sun and moon, and correlate with the three powers and the three phases of a syllable. The Kāmakalāvilāsa is the dedicated treatment.
Source: Kāmakalāvilāsa of Puṇyānanda with Naṭanānandanātha’s Cidvallī; Yoginīhṛdaya
The centre: a point, defined as having position but no extension.
It is identified with Tripurasundarī herself and with the union of Śiva and Śakti, and in the outward-in reading it is where the ascent terminates.
Source: Yoginīhṛdaya 1.36–40; Kāmakalāvilāsa of Puṇyānanda; Bhāskararāya, Setubandha
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