Mūlādhāra
Root chakra (4-petal lotus)
Mūlādhāra ("root-support") is the first of the seven cakras described in the Sat-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa, located at the perineum between the anus and the genitals. Avalon's translation of v. 4 places its four-petalled lotus in the space "between anus and genitals," each petal inscribed with one of the bīja-akṣaras वं शं षं सं in clockwise order. The seed-mantra at the centre is लं (LAM), and the yantra is a square — the iconographic seal of the earth element (pṛthvī). The presiding deity is Brahmā, four-headed, seated on a haṃsa; his śakti is Ḍākinī. The vehicle is Airāvata, the white elephant whose seven trunks recall the diffusion of earth-element through the gross body. By granthi-membership mūlādhāra anchors the brahma-granthi, the first of the three knots a sādhaka must "loosen" before kuṇḍalinī's ascent. The vertebral anchor on the back view is the COCCYX (Co1–Co4); the chakra is bilaterally symmetric and reads on midline in both views. Lineage tie-breaker: SCN-per-Avalon is canonical; Goswami's *Layayoga* and modern post-Theosophical schemes give different colors / tattva-correspondences and are recorded in `lineage_variants_known` rather than blended.
Point 1 of 7 in Chakras (7-system, Sat-Chakra-Nirupana)
Cross-tradition overlaps
- Mūlādhāra ↔ Mūlādhāra ādhāra (distance 0.005)
Sources
Sat-Cakra-Nirūpaṇa v.4 (primary_canonical)
“In the space between anus and the genitals is the four-petalled lotus of the Mūlādhāra.”
Woodroffe, The Serpent Power p.108 (secondary_translation)
“Mūlādhāra: at the base of the spine, four-petalled, with bīja LAM; the abode of Kuṇḍalinī Śakti coiled three and a half times around the svayambhū-liṅga.”