Xen qabbalah dictionary

Sri Yantra

The Sri Yantra is revered by Hindus as the most powerful and sacred of the yantras, or images for meditation. It represents the process of unfolding of Divine Creation from the Absolute, which is symbolized by the point, or so-called "bindu," at its centre. Five downward-pointing triangles symbolizing the feminine creative energy, or Shakti, intersect four upward-pointing triangles symbolizing the masculine creative energy, or Shiva. This generates 42 triangles arranged (in the pyramidal form called Meru in India) in layers of eight, ten, ten & 14 triangles. They surround a downward-pointing, central triangle whose corners denote the triple Godhead, or trimûrti, of Shiva, Brahma & Vishnu. Eight lotus petals are symmetrically arranged in a circumscribing circle and 16 lotus petals are likewise arranged in a larger circle. Surrounding the triangles and petals are three circles equally spaced apart. They are enclosed in a square with "doorways" in the middle of each side. There are plane (as shown on page 1), pyramidal (see here) and spherical forms (see here) of the Sri Yantra. In India there are even temples with its architecture. The Vidyashankara temple at Sringeri in India claims to possess the oldest known form of the Sri Yantra.

The Sri Yantra is generated by the overlapping of five downward-pointing triangles (shown in blue) and four upward-pointing triangles (shown in red). According to Tantra, creation on every level and scale is the product of the union of the opposite polarities of the male and female principles. In Hinduism, these archetypes are embodied in the God Shiva and the Goddess Shakti. For this reason, the downward-pointing triangles are called "Shakti triangles" and the upward-pointing triangles are called "Shiva triangles." Notice that the nine triangles consist of four pairs of Shiva & Shakti triangles, two pairs of which are mirror images of each other, and an extra Shakti triangle that is unpaired. The lowest corner of this triangle is directly below the lowest corner of the central triangle enclosing the bindu (black dot). The latter corner is the only corner of the central triangle that is not also a corner of one of the 42 triangles that surround the bindu in the 2-dimensional Sri Yantra.

The 43 triangles of the 3-dimensional Sri Yantra have 87 corners. 87 is the number value of Levanah, the Mundane of Yesod. Four black yods consist of the bindu and the three corners of the central triangle, 16 violet yods are corners of the first layer of eight triangles, 20 blue yods are corners of the second layer of ten triangles, 20 green yods are corners of the third layer of ten triangles and 28 red yods are corners of the fourth layer of 14 triangles.

A Type B triangle has 46 yods. Two Type B triangles joined at one side have 88 yods. They comprise four black yods on the shared side, 16 violet yods on the six internal sides of Type A triangles, 20 blue yods in a pair of Type A triangles, 20 green yods in two more Type A triangles and 28 red yods inside the two remaining Typa A triangles and on external sides of the two Type B triangles.

The power of the tetractys is such that it can transform two joined triangles into an object that is equivalent to the famous Sri Yantra! Here is how the simplest triangle is revealed by its construction from tetractyses to be equivalent to half the Sri Yantra. The latter cannot, of course, be split into two halves that are exact mirror images of each other, unlike the yods in the two joined, Type B triangles in the inner Tree of Life. However, the isomorphism between the Sri Yantra and these triangles as outlined above is established through a one-to-one correspondence between yods and corners. It is unnecessary to this isomorphism that one sacred geometry should exhibit the same mirror symmetry as the other one.