---
type: Concept
bundle: shakta-darshana
bundle_version: "0.8.0"
id: bindu
title: "Bindu — बिन्दु"
iast: "Bindu"
devanagari: "बिन्दु"
description: "The 'point' of concentrated potency: in Śākta-Tāntric metaphysics, the dimensionless concentration of Śakti in which all manifestation is gathered before differentiation, the center of the yantra (the Śrī Cakra's bindu), the anusvāra dot of the bīja-mantras, and a stage in the sound-cosmology (parā-paśyantī-madhyamā-vaikharī lineage); NOT merely 'a dot', NOT a chakra, NOT the forehead mark as the definition."
darshana:
  - Śākta
  - Trika (Kashmir Shaivism)
school_scope: "Bindu operates across Śākta yantra doctrine (center of the Śrī Cakra), mantra-śāstra (the anusvāra of bījas like hrīṃ), and Śaiva-Śākta sound cosmology. Haṭha-yogic and Āyurvedic usages of bindu (a bodily essence) are a different technical register, flagged not merged."
text_source: "Kāmakalāvilāsa; Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa (bindu in bīja iconography); Saundarya Laharī (Śrī Cakra context)"
tags: [bindu, yantra, sri-chakra, mantra, nada, shakta]
not:
  - term: "just a dot / point (geometry only)"
    why: "In this vocabulary bindu is a metaphysical term: the concentration of the whole in a dimensionless point, where 'point' is the image for maximal potency with zero extension. The Śrī Cakra's central bindu is not a design element; it is Tripurasundarī herself as the undifferentiated source the surrounding geometry unfolds from. Reading bindu as geometry is like reading 'singularity' in cosmology as punctuation."
    instead: "Define bindu as the point of concentrated potency: Śakti gathered without extension, from which manifestation differentiates and into which it resolves, iconographically the yantra's center and the dot of the bīja-mantra."
  - term: "a chakra or subtle-body organ"
    why: "Bindu appears IN subtle-body maps (some texts place a bindu-locus in the ascent narrative) but the concept is not a cakra; conflating them collapses the yantra/mantra/cosmology registers into anatomy-talk. See chakra-tantra.md for what cakras are and are not."
  - term: "the bindi (forehead mark) as the definition"
    why: "The bindi is a living cultural cognate (and in devotional context deliberately evokes the metaphysics), but defining bindu BY the forehead mark reverses the derivation and reduces doctrine to costume. Document the connection; do not substitute it."
related:
  - /concepts/sri-chakra.md
  - /concepts/yantra.md
  - /concepts/mantra-shastra.md
  - /concepts/matrika.md
  - /concepts/tripurasundari.md
timestamp: "2026-07-01"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Bindu -- बिन्दु

**Not:** a mere dot, a chakra, the bindi

## What It Actually Means

Bindu ("drop, point") is Śākta-Tāntric shorthand for a precise metaphysical claim: that between the utterly unmanifest and the differentiated world there is a moment (logical, not temporal; see [shattrimshat-tattva.md](shattrimshat-tattva.md) on non-chronology) in which the whole of what will manifest is gathered as pure concentrated potency, extensionless, like the geometric point that generates all figures while occupying none of them. Three registers deploy the concept:

1. **Yantra:** the bindu is the center of the Śrī Cakra (see [sri-chakra.md](sri-chakra.md)): the seat of the deity, the source the āvaraṇas (surrounding circuits) unfold from, and the terminus of contemplative re-ascent.
2. **Mantra:** the anusvāra (the dot, ṃ) crowning bīja-mantras such as hrīṃ and śrīṃ is doctrinally the bindu: the point where articulate sound resolves back toward its unstruck source (cross-reference nāda-brahman, v0.4; [matrika.md](matrika.md)).
3. **Sound cosmology:** in the śabda-lineage (parā → paśyantī → madhyamā → vaikharī; see wiki four-levels-of-vak), bindu marks the concentration-stage of the Word before differentiation, often triadized as bindu-nāda-kalā.

The Kāmakalāvilāsa builds its entire treatise on bindu-dynamics (the kāma-kalā analysis of the bindu's self-division); this entry cites its existence and scope, and per bundle policy leaves its initiatory upāsana undescribed.

## Audience Metaphor

A zip archive of a universe: the entire file system, compressed to a single object with no browsable structure, yet nothing missing. Bindu is the tradition's name for reality at maximal compression: everything present, nothing yet extended, and the yantra around it is the extraction path drawn as geometry.

## Citations

1. Kāmakalāvilāsa -- the classical bindu treatise (scope-cited; upāsana not reproduced)
2. Ṣaṭcakranirūpaṇa -- bindu in bīja iconography; see [references/shatchakranirupana.md](../references/shatchakranirupana.md)
3. Saundarya Laharī (Śrī Cakra verses) -- see [references/saundarya-lahari.md](../references/saundarya-lahari.md)
