The Agama Encyclopaedia: Alaya and Aradhana (Volume VI)

The agama literature includes the Silpa-Sastra, which is basic to iconography. Worship dealt with in the Agama necessarily involves images which are worship-worthy. The rituals and sequences that are elaborated in the Agama books find relevance only in the context of an icon which is contained in a shrine. And icons are meaningful only in the context of shrines and worship. Agama texts are not easily accessible to the people. A large number of them are still available only in manuscripts; some of them which have been printed are only in their Sanskrit originals. There is need, therefore, to present relevant excerpts from them at least, to make the volumes on iconography more meaningful. Further, Indian temples are to be considered only in the general framework of temple culture, which include not only religious and philosophical aspects but social, aesthetic and economic aspects also. The volumes named Agama Encyclopaedia deals with the temple-culture and Agama framework, the sectarian division of the Agama into Saiva, Vaisnaa and Sakta, and the topics selected from the Agama texts follow. Thus, the entirety of the Agama, literature in so far as it is relevant to the temple-culture is brought within the scope of The Agama Encyclopaedia.