Agamas

Agamas

The Agamas are a collection of Sanskrit scriptures, which means "a traditional doctrine or system which commands faith". Agamas also mean “acquisition of knowledge, received knowledge”. The Agamas deal with the philosophy and spiritual knowledge behind the worship of the deity, the yoga and mental discipline required for this worship, and the specifics of worship offered to the deity.

 

The Agamas include the Tantras, Mantras and Yantras. The Agamas are mostly in the form of dialogue giving a considerable amount of information on the earliest codes of temple building, image making, and religious procedure.

Each Agama consists of four parts. 

1. The first part (Knowledge Janana) includes the philosophical and spiritual knowledge.
2. The second part (Yoga Concentration) covers the yoga and the mental discipline.
3. The third part (Kriya, Esoteric Worship) specifies rules for the construction of temples and for sculpting and carving the figures of deities for worship in the temples.
4. The fourth part (Charya, Exoteric Worship) includes rules pertaining to the observances of religious rites, rituals, and festivals. 

Agamas also give elaborate details about cosmology, liberation, devotion, meditation, philosophy of Mantras, mystic diagrams, charms and spells, temple-building, image-making, domestic observances, social rules, public festivals, etc. 

The Agamas state three essential requirements for a place of pilgrimage: 

1. Sthala (refers to the Temple),
2. Teertham (refers to the Temple Tank) and
3.  Murthy (refers to the deity or deities worshipped)

The Agamas contains the rule for “The art of Sculpture” (Shilpa) describing the quality requirements of the places where temples are to be built, the kind of images to be installed, the materials from which they are to be made, their dimensions, proportions, air circulation, lighting in the temple complex etc. The Manasara and Silpasara are some of the works dealing with these rules. 

The Agamas do not derive their authority from the Vedas, but are not opposed to them. They are all Vedic in spirit and character. That is the reason why they are regarded as authoritative.

Three Section of Agamas:

The Agamas are divided into three sections: The Vaishnava, the Shaiva and the Shakti. The three chief classes of Sanatana Dharma: Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Shaktism, base their doctrines on their respective Agamas.

Agamas Section	Description
Vaishnava	The Vaishnava Agamas glorify God as Lord Vishnu. The Vaishnava Agamas are of four kinds: Vaikhanasa, Pancharatra, Pratishthasara and Vijnanalalita. The Vaishnavas regard the Pancharatra Agamas to be the most authoritative. It is believed that Vaishnava Agamas were revealed by Lord Vishnu Himself.
Shaiva	The Shaiva Agamas glorify God as Lord Shiva. The most prominent Agamas text in Shaivism is the Kamikam, in which Lord Shiva is considered as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the Highest Self, and the Conscious Principle.
Shakti	The Shakti Agamas glorify God as the Mother of the Universe. In Shaktism the Divine Mother is both the cause of delusion (maya) and the source of liberation. Shaktism gave birth to the practice of Tantric forms of worship which were not acceptable to the followers of Vedic methods of worship.

Sources: Wikipedia, Google.com etc.