Guruji on Paraśurāma Kalpasūtra
The primordial guru Dattātreya—comprising the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra bestowed his teachings upon Prahlada, his first disciple, and upon Paraśurāma, his second disciple. Paraśurāma codified these teachings and instructions into a scripture known as the Paraśurāma Kalpasūtra. Paraśurāma, an avatar of Vishnu, divided Sri Vidya upāsanā vidhi into five parts:
Gaṇapati. How to worship Ganesh at the Mūlādhāra Chakra.
Śrī Kramam, Lalitā Kramam and Navāvaraṇa Pūjās. How to worship Lalitā at the Svādhiṣṭhāna Chakra in the morning.
Rājaśyāmalā. How to worship Mantrini—who, as Rājaśyāmalā, plays the vina, the music of life—at the Anāhata Chakra at midday.
Vārāhī. How to worship boar-headed Vārāhī … at the Ājñā Chakra—in the evening.
Parā. Here, Paraśurāma gives the single-letter mantra sauḥ, which embodies Parā, who is worshiped in the Sahasrāra Chakra at midnight.
These five components—Gaṇapati, Lalitā, Rājaśyāmalā, Vārāhī and Parā—complete the Dattātreya upāsanā paddhati as codified by Paraśurāma. There are other techniques included as well, such as the Raśmi Mālā Mantras, which are to be recited once a day. They are series of rays emanating from the feet of the Divine Mother, each identified with its own particular chakra, or center. Elsewhere in his Kalpasūtra, Paraśurāma talks about how to do the hōmās—fire sacrifices that help you attain the various needs of life.
If you look at a Sanskrit version of Paraśurāma Kalpasūtra, you’ll find a word-by-word transcription of the original text—but always encoded; the mantras are never given in their direct forms. Every mantra must be deciphered before you can understand it. So that is what I have done here. As part of this deciphering process, I consulted Umānanda Nātha, who wrote a practical commentary on the subject but added many other things as well.
And likewise, every other upāsaka who wrote a commentary on Paraśurāma Kalpasūtra continued adding more to it. They kept on complicating it!
For example, some people try to combine all of the five pujas listed above into one unmanageably long ceremony. Neither the participants nor those watching the pujas really understand what’s going on; they just figure the longer the puja is, the better it must be. So they keep adding to it from this book and that book, afraid to let go of any small piece. Soon they lose their balance and become angry at even the slightest disturbance to the puja—like a child having a temper tantrum. The problem is that, for a devotee, to become angry is to go down in defeat.
Source: "Understanding of Śrī Cakra Pūjā"
