The Chakras Were Not Always Seven
The sixteenth-century Sanskrit text usually credited with the system actually describes one scheme among many rival Tantric and Tibetan lists, some naming four centres, others five, nine, or more — the number seven itself is a choice among options, not a discovery.
Purnananda's Sat-Cakra-Nirupana (1577), translated by Arthur Avalon as The Serpent Power (1919)
The now-standard count of seven chakras, treated as a single fixed and ancient Indian teaching.
