YS 219 | The Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa: Description of the Six Cakras

Course Description

The Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa is a short Sanskrit text (consisting of only 56 verses) composed in the sixteenth century in East Bengal by the prominent tantric author Pūrṇānanda Giri. Originally, this work constituted the sixth chapter of his extensive tantric treatise Śrītattvacintāmaṇi, but this chapter soon became so popular that it began to be copied and circulated as a separate work under various titles. Dozens of manuscripts of this text are found in repositories throughout India, attesting to the high popularity of this work. Furthermore, there are about ten commentaries on it, confirming its significance. Today, this work is known almost exclusively as the Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa, because it was published under this title in 1913 in an edition prepared by Tārānātha Vidyāratna in the series Tantric Texts, edited by John Woodrofe. The same author, together with his collaborators, prepared an English translation that was included in the voluminous book The Serpent Power (1918). Thanks to this translation, the Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa became a very well-known text in the West and served as a key source for the creative elaboration of the concept of chakras by Western authors, ranging from theosophists to followers of the New Age movement and contemporary practitioners.

 We will begin our course with an introductory lecture in which students will learn basic facts about the author, his background and works, and the possible sources of his concept of chakras and kuṇḍalinī; we will then present the structure and content of the text; and finally, we will introduce and discuss relevant literature. In the following nine lessons, we will read the text, with the goal of translating it in its entirety. We will use the critical edition of Śrītattvacintāmaṇi (1936–1938) and consult Avalon’s English translation. Some verses are relatively clear, others are not; in these cases, we will seek help in three published traditional commentaries (included in Vidyāratna’s edition) and in the text editor’s highly informed commentary.