Welcome to Vidyākośa विद्याकोश
the free-to-read treasury of India's mystic, healing, and wisdom traditions — 1,000+ entries and growing.
2933 entries · 12 kośa · 70+ departments · 4 languages planned
Featured entry
The Ten Mahāvidyās — Kālī, Tārā, Tripurasundarī, Bhuvaneśvarī, Bhairavī, Chinnamastā, Dhūmāvatī, Bagalāmukhī, Mātaṅgī, and Kamalā: a pantheon of fierce wisdom-goddesses whose cults reach back to the early medieval tantra traditions. This week's featured entry traces the group, its texts, and its practice lineages.
Did you know…
- …that the seven-chakra model taught in most studios today was substantially reshaped by 20th-century Theosophist writers?
- …that Nadi Shodhana (alternate-nostril breathing) appears in hatha yoga manuscripts predating any medical study of its effects?
- …that Vidyākośa marks practitioner-reported benefits separately from independently confirmed claims, on every entry?
Our editorial approach
We document, not endorse — entries record what a tradition teaches, what practitioners report, and what independent sources confirm, keeping the three visibly separate.
Every entry carries source notes, and health-adjacent content never uses curative language.
Browse the twelve kośa
Named after the pañcakośa, the sheaths said to layer around a person — ordered here from the living tradition-bearer at the centre to the documented record at the rim.
| Layer | Covers | Entries | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Archive | Interviews, oral histories, documents, manuscripts | 196 |
| 04 | Philosophy | Consciousness, karma, dharma, moksha, shakti, self, awakening | 380 |
| 06 | Esoterica | Mantra-śāstra, yantra, astrology, divination, occult sciences | 135 |
| 05 | Healing | Traditional medicine, energy healing, herbalism, folk healing, mind-body | 118 |
| 09 | Lineages | Guru to shishya, sampradaya, parampara, and the institutions that carry them | 123 |
| 01 | People | Teachers, healers, and lineage-holders — living and historical | 809 |
| 08 | Places | Temples, ashrams, mathas, pilgrimage sites, sacred geography | 314 |
| 03 | Practices | Meditation, mantra, energy healing, Reiki, pranic healing, ritual, divination | 342 |
| 11 | Research | Academic studies, evidence, criticism, controversies | 118 |
| 07 | Texts | Vedas, Upanishads, Tantras, Puranas, Ayurveda texts, modern books | 285 |
| 02 | Traditions | Ayurveda, Yoga, Tantra, Sri Vidya, Siddha, Sufi, Buddhist, Folk | 70 |
| 12 | Explore | Timeline, glossary, maps, graph, languages | — |