Another aspect of the Devl which is more widely
worshipped in South India is Lalita TripurasundarL Repeti¬tion of the wellknown Lalitasahasranama and Trisati*, as also the worship of her emblem, the 'Srlcakra' are extre¬mely popular. The initiation into her powerful Mantra, the Paiicadasak~arl (Mantra of 15 letters) is an esoteric rite.
Regular worship of the Srlcakra is said to yield any result the devotee desires.
If Durga and KalI represent the aspects of power of the Goddess, Lalita represents the aspect of beauty. Hence her form is depicted as extremely beautiful and her worship more refined.
According to the Lalitoplikhylina of the Brahmli1}(la Purli1}a, Lalita DevI manifested herself in the midst of a disc of extreme brilliance, that arose from the sacrificial pit when Indra was performing a sacrifice in honour of her. At the behest of the gods assembled there, she chose to wed Kamesvara (Lord Siva). She destroyed the demon Bhal).qasura and annihilated his city, the SOl).itapura. Visvakarma, the engineer of the gods, built a gorgeous city 'SrIpura' on the mountain Meru, for her sake, where, along with her spose Siva Kamesvara, she is residing eternally. The SrIcakra actually represents the DevI in this SrIpura.
Bhal).qasura, the shameless demon, living in the SOl).itapura, the city of blood and flesh, is actually the ego which makes the soul identify itself with the body and estrange itself from all the divine forces. When the DevI, who is the embodiment of God's power and grace, 'kills' it, she is actually liberating it from its stifling limitations.
Lalita is usually depicted as slightly red in colour (as that of the dawn) and extraordinarily beautiful. In her four hands she is holding a bow of sugarcane, arrows, the goad (Ailkusa) and the noose (Pasa). Sometimes she is shown holding a wine cup made of diamond. One of her feet,
usually the left, is shown resting on a pedestal, also of diamond.
The bow made of sugarcane actually represents the mind. It is through the mind that we experience all joy. /
Hence it is described as made of sugarcane. The bow is the instrument for discharging the arrows. The mind is the instrument by which the sense organs are 'shot' towards the sense-objects. Hence it is described as a bow. The arrows are the Panca-tanmatras, the five subtle elements of Akasa (ether), Vayu (air), Agni (fire), Apas (water), PrthivI (earth). The sense organs like the eye and the ear, are products of these subtle elements and are discharged like arrows, through the mind, towards the sense-objects. Hence the subtle elements are described as the arrows in her hand. She is the power that energises and controls our minds and sense organs. This is the underlying idea. The Pasa (noose) is actually Raga (attachment) which binds. The Ailkusa (goad) is Krodha (anger, aversion) which hurts. The power that animates our attachments and aver¬sions is also hers. If we forget her, she can bind us with Ragapasa, and pierce us with the Krodhailkusa. If we take refuge in her, she can withdraw them into her hands and thereby free us from their torment.
An account of Lalita cannot be complete without a few words of description of the Srlcakra. The Srlcakra is essentially a yantra. ** the form and pattern of the deity. It is
a rather complicated geometrical figure of forty three
triangles formed by the intersection of nine triangles, of which five have their apexes downward and the other four upward. This is surrounded by concentric circles with eight and then sixteen lotus petals. The whole figure is skirted by a square of three lines with openings in the middle of each side. There is a dot in the centre of the entire diagram.
This dot represents the combination of Siva and Sakti, as also the first throb, which gradually gathers
momentum and gets concentrated into a polarisation of Siva and Sakti, but continuing to keep the original Siva-Sakti combination also. The process repeats continuously resulting in various levels of creation, which are depicted by the different triangles and the lotus petals.
The Srlcakra can be used for permanent worship either in the form of a Yantra (two dimensional engraved figure) or in the form of Meru (three dimensional embossed figure).



* Thousand names and three hundred names, respectively of Lalita DevL


** Practically every deity of the Hindu pantheon has three modes of expression or manifestation: (a) the Murti, the three¬
dimensional form which can be sculptured; (b) the Yantra, a
two-dimensional or geometric pattern which can be drawn; and (c) the Mantra, the sound form or the thought form, which can be uttered in contemplation. The 'Murti' is usually described in the appropriate Dhyanasloka (verse chanted at the beginning of meditation, to call up the form of the deity into the mind) and dealt with in greater detail in the iconographical works.
The Yantra and Mantra are described in Tantric works. The Mantra, when received from a competent Guru and repeated with intense faith and devotion, is capable of revealing the form of the deity by setting up appropriate vibrations in the akasa (ether) which pervades everything including one's own body and mind. The yantra, the geometrical abode of the deity, when drawn properly (using the dot, the straight line, the triangle, the circle, the segment and so on), and installed, gets charged as it were, binding the contemplated deity to itself. Though the Sricakra is comparatively more well-known, there are a good number of other Yantras or Cakras which are still very much in vogue.