Within the tantric landscape, the Kularnava Tantra stands as a Kaula Śākta–Śaiva scripture that both draws from and reorders earlier Śaiva and Śākta currents. It accepts a broadly Śaiva vision in which Śiva is the ultimate reality, yet it insists that this reality is approached and actualized through Śakti as Kula, the totality of embodied and cosmic energies. In this sense it shares with non-dual Śaiva traditions, such as those associated with Kashmir Śaivism, the doctrine that Śiva and Śakti are inseparable and that realization consists in recognizing one’s identity with the supreme. At the same time, it gives pronounced primacy to Śakti as the creative and dynamic force, often more emphatically than many Śaiva-oriented presentations, and thus aligns itself strongly with the core intuitions of Śākta tantra.

Doctrinally and ritually, the text operates as a synthesis: it affirms a non-dual (advaya) vision while retaining the full apparatus of mantra, yantra, initiation, and graded ritual practice characteristic of the wider Śaiva–Śākta āgamic tradition. It shares with other Kaula and Yoginī tantras the use of secret initiations, strict guru–disciple transmission, and the valorization of practices and symbols that transgress conventional norms, including the well-known “five Ms” in some interpretations. Yet, compared with many earlier and more cryptic Kaula sources, it is markedly didactic and normative, laying out qualifications, ethical expectations, and the conditions of eligibility for practitioners with unusual clarity. In doing so, it helps to codify and stabilize Kaula practice within the broader Śaiva–Śākta world.

The Kularnava Tantra also positions itself hierarchically in relation to other tantric paths. It recognizes right-hand (dakṣiṇa), left-hand (vāma), and Kaula modes of practice, but consistently presents Kaula as the culmination of these streams. More conventional, non-transgressive ritual forms are treated as preparatory or limited in their capacity to yield swift realization, while purely antinomian approaches are portrayed as dangerous when divorced from proper initiation and understanding. In this way, the text absorbs diverse Śaiva and Śākta practices into a single graded framework, asserting Kaula as the apex in which ritual enjoyment and liberation are no longer opposed but mutually illuminating when grounded in non-dual insight.

In its relation to other Śākta systems, such as those centered on mantras, yantras, and deity-specific cults, the Kularnava Tantra shares the common emphasis on Śakti as supreme and on the transformative power of mantra and visualization. What distinguishes it is the repeated self-definition of Kaula as the highest Śākta path and the insistence that the full integration of worldly experience (bhoga) with spiritual realization (mokṣa) is possible only when approached through this Kaula understanding. Thus, while deeply indebted to earlier Śaiva and Śākta tantras, it reinterprets them from the vantage point of a mature Kaula synthesis, offering a vision in which all prior streams find their consummation in non-dual recognition mediated by Śakti.