agama
आगम āgamaA class of revealed, often Tantric scriptures governing temple ritual, deity worship, and practice; the Shaiva schools each draw on their own Agamas.
Where this term appears
- Shruti and Smriti: what counts as Hindu scripture? Scriptures
The Shaiva Agamas , the scriptures governing temple worship, ritual, and practice in much of Shaivism, are held by their followers to be direct revelation from Shiva himself.
- Āgama and Veda: two revelations Lineages
… of Shiva, and the Tamil tradition coined a word for the relation, Vedāgama , treating Veda and Āgama as one revelation whose inner essence is the Siddhānta.
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
A Hindu temple is built as a single journey inward, and every part has a name and a purpose. The pilgrim moves from the temple tank and the towering gateway (the…
- Eighty-five titles and no text: the Saura tantras and how a tradition disappears Lineages
In 2018, in Varanasi, the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University published a book titled Saura Agama Tantra .
- How to Read a Murti Deities
Gopinatha Rao, whose Elements of Hindu Iconography of 1914 remains the foundation of the subject, gathered the rules from the shilpa shastras and the agamas and showed how exact they are.
- The 28 Śaiva Āgamas Lineages
They are usually treated as upāgamas , subsidiary texts hanging off a root.
- The 64 Śākta Tantras Lineages
The 64 Śākta Tantras are the Goddess-centred tantric scriptures, named in a famous verse of the Saundaryalaharī. The number 64 is a traditional and symbolic…
- The Four Streams of Hinduism Essentials
…ate revelation the stream regards as its own: the twenty-eight Shaiva Agamas , ritual and theological scriptures that stand parallel to the Vedas.