The word Kundalini is a familiar one to all students of
Yoga, as it is well known as the power, in the form of a coiled serpent,
residing in Muladhara Chakra, the first of the seven Chakras, the other six
being Svadhishthana, Manipuraka, A nahata, Visuddha, Ajna and Sahasrara, in
order.
Less is historically known of the Agamas than the Vedas,
because the latter provide descriptive poem-pictures of Vedic life. The
original Agamas are twenty-eight in number. They are called Saiva Agamas as they
focus on establishing a relationship with and ultimately realizing the Supreme
Being Siva. They carry names like Vira, Hero. Siddha, Perfected and
Swayambhuva, naturally revealed.
The Agamas are divided into four parts called padas, lessons.
The first two padas - Chariya good conduct, and Kriya, external worship,-
include all the details of personal home life, house planning, town planning,
personal worship in temples, the architectural plans for temples and sculpture
as well as the intricacies of temple puja. The final two padas - Yoga,
internalized worship and union, and Jnana, enlightened wisdom, – vividly
describe the processes and stages of kundalini yoga, and the Cod-like plateaus
of consciousness reached when Sivahood is attained. In the actual texts, the
padas are ordered with jnana first, yoga second, then kriya and chariya -
unfurling from a God-state to a human state.
The
Agamas contain tens of thousands of verses, much more prolific than the Vedas.
Though the Vedas stayed strictly in Sanskrit, the Agamas proliferated across India
