Within the Tripura Rahasya, Tripura Sundarī is presented as the very heart of nondual reality, not as a merely sectarian goddess but as the supreme consciousness itself. She is identified with Brahman, the Paramātman, the innermost Self of all beings, and is described as both the transcendental and the immanent principle. The epithet “Tripura” points to her sovereignty over the three states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, and deep sleep—as well as over the three worlds and the three bodies, indicating that she both pervades and transcends all conditioned experience. In this way, she is portrayed as pure awareness, the witness in whom all phenomena arise and into whom they ultimately subside, while she herself remains untouched.

At the same time, Tripura Sundarī is depicted as Śakti, the dynamic aspect of the Absolute, the power through which the universe is created, sustained, and dissolved. She is the material and efficient cause of manifestation, the Chit-Śakti or power of consciousness that appears as mind, world, and even ignorance, yet is never reduced to them. The text often likens her to a cosmic mirror: all names and forms appear within her, but none ever alter her essential nature as pure, self-luminous awareness. Realizing her true, nondual nature is described as identical with realizing the Self, and this realization is liberation.

Tripura Sundarī also functions as the inner guru and revealer of knowledge. The wisdom of the treatise is traced back to her instruction, transmitted through sages such as Dattātreya, and she is portrayed as the guiding intelligence behind the dialogues that unfold its Advaitic vision. As the compassionate, grace-bestowing deity, she leads seekers from an initial dualistic devotion—where she is worshiped as an apparently separate goddess—toward the mature insight that she is none other than their own innermost consciousness. Devotional practices and meditation directed to her thus serve as a means of mental purification, gradually transforming the devotee’s vision until the distinction between worshiper and worshiped falls away.

In this Shakta Advaita framework, Tripura Sundarī therefore unites several roles that are often treated separately: she is the nondual Absolute, the universal Self, the creative power of manifestation, and the liberating guru. Her dominion over the “three cities” of experience and over the three guṇas underscores that all changing states belong to her play, while her own nature remains ever free, self-aware, and complete. The text invites the seeker to recognize that what appears outwardly as the beautiful goddess Tripura Sundarī is inwardly the very light of consciousness by which all experience is known, and that to awaken to this identity is to awaken from bondage altogether.