An intention, a design, and a shopping list

Shastra exists because of exactly this: I went to source my own flagship claim — the Dakṣiṇa Kālī stack in the Kālikā Purāṇa — and couldn't. The texts I need next — Śyāmārahasya, Rudrayāmala, Toḍala Tantra — I don't have. Shastra is currently an intention, a design, and a shopping list.

The Body of Work argued for a uniform deity-module stack across millennia. When I tried to pin one module in the Purāṇa I know best, the stack wasn't there. Three layers turned up only in compiled archives. Seven are open gaps. That is not a website bug — it is a research result that either points at missing primary texts or at a weaker thesis. Shastra is how those possibilities get distinguished.

Detail: observation 3.8. Questions: Contribute.

The acquisition list is no longer a general bibliography. The pin failure named priorities. Those texts are at the top of the source index, marked against the open questions they would close.

• Śyāmārahasya — needed to close kavaca / dhyāna leads (open questions #3, #7).
• Rudrayāmala — same lead chain as the compiled kavaca colophon (open question #7).
• Toḍala Tantra — Mahāvidyā dhyāna territory; needed for primary pins beyond compilations (open questions #1–#5).

Reading list that is already public: References.

Every claim with source and confidence. Disagreements kept visible. Cites the tradition — does not speak for it. AI retrieves under a hard rule: only what the sources say, with citation; gaps stay gaps.

Early. Design exists. Source list exists. First public result is a failed pin in a text I can read — published on 3.8. That is the honest starting line.