Oral tradition in Tantra

[gheil at edu.washington.cs]

I have been looking for the construction method for the Sri
Yantra for two years. And have found an enormous number of
incorrect methods, but so far no correct ones. Teachers who,
apparently, do correct constructions deflect my questions. Books
on the subject give only very aproximate methods - without
acknowledging they are just approximations.

A thorough search through the Humanities Citation Index from 1975
to the present turned up only two articles on the subject. Both
gave excellent approximations and acknowledged their limitation
and their lack of knowledge of a correct solution - meeting the
description in the Lalita Tripurasundar'i of having exactly 43
triangles.

While I was doing that literature search I also turned up a
dissertation on the Sr'ividya school (whose practice centers on
this Yantra). The abstract says the primary focus of the second
part is on "practice and interpretation in private and public
settings". This might be of interest to Lance Nelson who
expressed an interest in Tantric codes of secrecy.

If anyone has access to this dissertation can tell me if it gives
a scholarly account of the construction of the Sri Yantra I would
appreciate an excerpt. The abstract says the Yantra is covered in
some detail.

I would appreciate any other clues to the construction the group
might be aware of. Or if anyone knows the EMail addresses of the
authors of the above mentioned papers:

The SriVidya school of Sakta Tantrism
Douglas R Brooks, Harvard, PhD 1987

The Geometry of the Sri Yantra
Nicholas J Bolton and D. Nicol G. Macleod
Religion (Academic Pr) v7n1p66 1977

Constructive Geometry and the Sri-Cakra Diagram
Rory Fonseca
Religion (Academic Pr) v16p33 1986

- Greg Heil