If God can be conceived of as the Father in Heaven, He can as well be conceived of as the Mother Divine also. Though God is neither masculine nor feminine, human nature being what it is, it is but natural that anthropomorphic ways of worship are resorted to in religion. Once this principle is accpted, what form of the Deity can be more fitting for worship and contemplation than that of the all-loving Divine Mother?

even though Mother-worship is very ancient in Hinduism, the 'Father' has not been neglected! In fact, the Father-Mother-Principle is one and the same. Just as fire and its burning power or the word and its meaning cannot be separated, even so Siva and Sakti cannot be separated.

Though the three consorts of the Trinity-Sarasvati of Brahma the Creator, Laksmi of Visnu the protector and Paravati of mahesvara, the destroyer-are the main deities in the Mother-cult, it is the various aspects of Paravati that are most widely used in worship, Japa or contemplation. In fact, an entire branch of Hindu religious practice, the Tantras, has developed round this Deity.

Again, Durga, Kali and Lalita are the thee forms of Parvati which are most widely used for worship. The Sricakra is the symbol of the Lalita-aspect of the Divine Mother. It is essentially a yantra, a geometrical diagram representing the form-pattern of the Goddess.

The Sricakra consist of a dot (bindu) at the centre surrounded by nine triangles (trikona), of which five have their apexes downward and the other four, upward. The mutual intersection of these nine triangles form fourty-three triangles in all. This is surrounded by concentric circles with eight lotus petals and sixteen lotus petals. This again surrounded by three more concentric circles. Finally on the outskirts, there is a square (caturasra) or three line, the lines one inside the other, opening out in the middle of each side as four portals.

According to Sakta Tantras, scriptures of the cult of Mother worship, the ultimate Reality is one, a transcendental Absolute which immutable and ineffable. It is pictured as Supreme Effulgence, Prakasa. Desiring to become many, this Absolute starts reflecting on Itself.

this deliberation is technically designated 'vimarsa'. this vimarsa creates a throb or stir, spanda, which develops as vibration or nada and gets concentrated to a point or bindu.

this bindu, like dicotyledonous seed, contains the siva sakti principle as one closely knit unit. it then gradually swells, giving rise to the polarisation of siva (father-principle) and sakti (mother-principle), retaining simultaneously the original latent and potent sttus containing the siva-sakti combination. these three units now form a triangle, as it were. this process goes on and on, until it results in the sricakra. this is nothing but a representation of the supreme consciousness in its various levels of evolution.

we thus see that the sricakra is a symbol of the divine, its ovulation into the created universe as well as the universe itself. in other words, it represents the absolute in all its aspects.