The Serpent Power: Preface
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In my work "Shakti and Shakta" I outlined for the first time the principles of "Kundalini-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 (Kundalini Shakti), and the Yoga effected through it, a subject occupying a pre-eminent place in the Tantra Shastra. 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 "Shatchakranirupana" ("Description of and Investigation into the Six Bodily Centres"), has as its author the celebrated Tantrik Purnanda Svami, a short note on whose life is given later. It forms the sixth chapter of his extensive and unpublished work on Tantrik Ritual entitled "Shritattvachintamani". This has been the subject of commentaries by among others Shangkara and Vishvanatha cited in Volume II of the Tantrik Texts, and used in the making of the present translation. The commentary here translated from the Sanskrit is by Kalicharana.
The second text, called "Paduka-Panchaka" ("Fivefold Footstool of the Guru"), deals with one of the Lotuses described in the larger work. To it is appended a translation from the Sanskrit of a commentary by Kalicharana. 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 endeavoured 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 Centres, 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 Shastra. In "Principles of Tantra" will be found general Introductions to the Shastra and (in connection with the present subject) valuable chapters on Shakti and Mantras. In my recent work, Shakti and Shakta (the second edition of which is as I write reprinting), I have shortly summarised the teaching of the Shakta Tantras and their rituals. In my Studies in the Mantra Shastra, the first three parts of which have been reprinted from the "Vedanta Kesari", in which they first appeared, will be found more detailed descriptions of such technical terms as Tattva, Causal Shaktis, Kala, Nada, 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 Purnananda, the celebrated Tantrika Sadhaka of Bengal, and author of the "Shatchakranirupana", 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 Kumara Maitra, and Secretary, Sj. Radha Govinda Baisak, I am indebted for the following details:
Purnanda was a Rahri Brahmana of the Kashyapa Gotra, whose ancestors belonged to the village of Pakrashi, which has not as yet been identified. His seventh ancestor Anantacharya is said to have migrated from Baranagara in the district of Murshidbabad, to Kaitali, in the district of Mymensingh. In his family were born two celebrated Tantrika Sadhakas — Sarvananda and Purnananda. The descendants of Sarvananda reside at Mehar, while those of Purnananda reside mostly in the district of Mymensingh. Little is known about the wordly life of Purnanda, except that he bore the name of Jagadananda, and copied a manuscript of the Vishnupuranam in the Shaka year 1448 (A.D. 1526). This manuscript, now in the possession of one of his descendants named Pandit Satis Chandra Siddhantabhushana of the Varendra Research Society. The colophon states that Jagadananda Sharma wrote the Purana in the Shaka year 1448.
This Jagadananda assumed the name of Purnananda when he obtained his Diksha (Initiation) from Brahmananda and went to Kamarupa (Assam), in which province he is believed to have abtained his "Siddhi" or state of spiritual perfection in the Ashrama, which still goes by the name of Vashishthashrama, situated at a distance of about seven miles from the town of Gauhati (Assam). Purnananda never returned home, but led the life of a Paramahangsa and compiiled several Tantrika works, of which the Shritattvachintamani, composed in the Shaka year 1499 (A.D. 1577), Shyamarahasya, Shaktakrama, Tattvanandatarangini, and Yogasara are known. His commentary on the Kalikakarakuta hymn is well-known. The Shatchakranirupana, here translated, is not, however an independent work, but a part of the sixth Patala of the Shritattvachintamani. According to a genealogical table of the family of this Tantrika Acharya and Virachara Sadhaka, given by one of his descendants, Purnananda 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 these 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 do not allow of this, and I have therefore thought it better to publish the book as stands rather than risk further delay.
Arthur Avalon. Ranchi, September 20, 1918
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