“The influence of the Āgamas or Tantras, as they are more familiarly known, on Indian life has been profound The living Hindu religion of today from Cape Comoran to the remotest corners of Tibet is essentially Tantric Even the few genuine Vedic rites that are preserved and are supposed to be derived straight from the Vedas eg the Sandhyā, have been modified by the addition of Tantric practices Equally profound has been the influence of the Agamas on the development of Vedānta philosophy. śankara was a professed Sākta and his Advaita exposition of the Vedānta, though overtly independent of the śākta Āgamas, is influenced by Tantric theories and his discipline by Tantric practices. Rāmānuja who, according to Dr Thibaut, expounds a less forced form of Vedānta and more near to the ideas of Bādarāyana, the author of the Vedānta Sūtras, than Sankara, was a Vaisnava and regarded the Vaisnava Āgamas as authoritative, though he too seldom quotes them to support his exposition. Madhva is so much under the Āgama influence that his Bhāsya is but a string of Āgama texts with a few words thrown in here and there to connect them"
Subject-Matter
As regards the general contents of Agama literature, the subject-matter is generally dealt with under four heads viz Jñāna (knowledge which is Release or Muktı), Yoga (concentration on one subject), Kriyā (Action-including all actions from laying the foundations of the temple to the completion of the sacred edifice and the installation of the images therein, according to prescribed rules) and Caryā (performance of daily worship other rites, rituals, and festivals etc according to prescribed methods) Though this division into four Pādas
