The Sri Yantra is the best known of the sacred diagrams of the Indian tantric traditions: four upward triangles and five downward ones, interlaced around a central point and ringed by lotus petals, circles and a gated square. This one is drawn to scale in your browser. Change the colors, build it up one triangle at a time, and save it. New to the Sri Yantra? Read about it.
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The nine enclosures
Tradition reads the yantra as nine enclosures, called avaranas, from the outside in.
Shiva and Shakti
The four upward triangles are usually read as Shiva, the masculine principle, and the five downward ones as Shakti, the feminine. They meet at the bindu, where the two are said to be one. Meanings vary between lineages, and there are several schools of drawing.
This drawing takes its triangle coordinates from a published construction. The two largest triangles have their corners on the circle, and the figure is symmetric left to right. Practitioners may prefer other proportions, and a hand-drawn yantra is a matter of practice and not just geometry.