Svadhisthana in the Tantric Sources

Svadhisthana is described in the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana as a lotus of six petals at the root of the genitals, bearing the letters bam through lam. Within it is a white crescent, the region of water, with the seed syllable VAM seated on a makara, the composite aquatic creature of Indian iconography; the presiding deity is Vishnu with the shakti Rakini. The name is usually glossed as one's own dwelling place, though the etymology is disputed and other readings are given. As with all the centres, the text describes what the practitioner is to visualise and what is said to follow from steady concentration on it, in a form of practice that belongs within an initiatory lineage and is not fully intelligible apart from it.

The makara seated beneath Svadhisthana's seed syllable is a composite creature, part crocodile and part fish or elephant depending on the region and period, that appears throughout Hindu iconography as the mount of the river goddess Ganga and of the sea god Varuna; its presence here extends that wider association of the makara with water and with the unpredictable, generative force the tradition assigns to rivers and oceans to the second chakra specifically. The chakra's location at the root of the genitals also places it, in the kundalini model, as the second stage the rising serpent power is said to pass on its way from Muladhara toward Sahasrara, still within the lower, more overtly elemental part of the ascent.