The Serpent Power. Arthur Avalon

      Preface

      In my work “Shakti and Shākta” I outlined for the first time the principles of “Kundalī-Yoga” so much discussed in some quarters, but of which so little was known.

      This work is a description and explanation in fuller detail of the Serpent Power (Kundalī Shakti), and the Yoga effected through it, a subject occupying a preeminent place in the Tantra Shāstra. It consists of a translation of two Sanskrit works published some years ago in the second volume of my series of Tantrik Texts, but hitherto untranslated. The first, entitled “Shatchakranirūpana” (“Description of and Investigation into the Six Bodily Centers”), has as its author the celebrated Tantrik Pūrnānanda Svāmī, a short note of whose life is given later. It forms the sixth chapter of his extensive and unpublished work on Tantrik Ritual entitled “Shrītattvachintāmani.” This has been the subject of commentaries by Shangkara and Vishvanātha cited in Volume II. of the Tantrik Texts, and used in the making of the present translation.

      The second text, called “Pādukā-Panchaka” (“Fivefold Footstool of the Guru”), deals with one of the Lotuses described in the larger work. To the translation of both works I have added some further explanatory notes of my own. As the works translated are of a highly recondite character, and by themselves unintelligible to the English reader, I have prefaced the translation by a general Introduction in which I have endeavored to give (within the limits both of a work of this kind and my knowledge) a description and explanation of this form of Yoga. I have also included some plates of the Centers, which have been drawn and painted according to the description of them as given in the first of these Sanskrit Texts.

      It has not been possible in the Introduction to do more than give a general and summary statement of the principles upon which Yoga, and this particular form of it, rests. Those who wish to pursue the subject in greater detail are referred to my other published books on the Tantra Shāstra. In “Principles of Tantra” will be found general Introductions to the Shāstra and (in connection with the present subject) valuable chapters on Shakti and Mantras. In my recent work, “Shakti and Shākta” (the second edition of which is as I write reprinting), I have shortly summarized the teaching of the Shākta Tantras and their rituals. In my “Studies in the Mantra Shāstra,” the first three parts of which have been reprinted from the “Vedānta Kesarī,” in which they first appeared, will be found more detailed descriptions of such technical terms as Tattva, Causal Shaktis, Kalā, Nāda, Bindu, and so forth, which are referred to in the present book. Other works published by me on the Tantra, including the “Wave of Bliss,” will be found in the page of advertisements.

      The following account of Pūrnānanda, the celebrated Tāntrika Sādhaka of Bengal, and author of the “Shatchakranirūpana,” has been collected from the descendants of his eldest son, two of whom are connected with the work of the Varendra Research Society, Rajshahi, to whose Director, Sj. Akshaya Kumāra Maitra, and Secretary, Sj. Rādhā Govinda Baisāk, I am indebted for the following details:

      Pūrnānanda was a Rahri Brāhmana of the Kashyapa Gotra, whose ancestors belonged to the village of Pakrashi, which has not as yet been identified. His seventh ancestor Anantāchārya is said to have migrated from Baranagara, in the district of Murshidabad, to Kaitali, in the district of Mymensingh. In his family were born two celebrated Tāntrika Sādhakas—namely, Sarvānanda and Pūrnānanda. The descendants of Sarvānanda reside at Mehar, while those of Pūrnānanda reside mostly in the district of Mymensingh. Little is known about the worldly life of Pūrnānanda, except that he bore the name of Jagadānanda, and copied a manuscript of the Vishnupurānam in the Shāka year A.D. 1448-1526. This manuscript, now in the possession of one of his descendants named Pandit Hari Kishore Bhattāchārya, of Kaitali, is still in a fair state of preservation. It was brought for inspection by Pandit Satis Chandra Siddhāntabhūshana of the Varendra Research Society. The colophon states that Jagadānanda Sharma wrote the Purāna in the Shāka year 1448.

      This Jagadānanda assumed the name of Pūrnānanda when he obtained his Dīkshā (Initiation) from Brahmānanda and went to Kāmarūpa (Assam), in which province he is believed to have obtained his “Siddhi” or state of spiritual perfection in the Āshrama, which still goes by the name of Vashishthāshrama, situated at a distance of about seven miles from the town of Gauhati (Assam). Pūrnānanda never returned home, but led the life of a Paramahangsa and compiled several Tāntrika works, of which the Shritattvachintāmani, composed in the Shāka year A.D. 1499-1577, Shyāmārahasya, Shāktakrama, Tattvānandataranginī, and Yogasāra are known. His commentary on the Kālī-kakārakūta hymn is well known. The Shatchakranirūpana, here translated, is not, however, an independent work, but a part of the sixth Patala of the Shrītattvachintāmani. According to a genealogical table of the family of this Tāntrika Āchārya and Vīrāchāra Sādhaka, given by one of his descendants, Pūrnānanda is removed from his present descendants by about ten generations.

      This work has been on hand some five years, but both the difficulties of the subject and those created by the war have delayed its publication. I had hoped to include some other plates of original paintings and drawings in my possession bearing on the subject, but present conditions