Tera Font Indra Download

[Hermila Farquhar]

The main Tārā mantra is the same for Buddhists and Hindus alike: oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā. It is pronounced by Tibetans and Buddhists who follow the Tibetan culture as oṃ tāre tu tāre ture soha. The literal translation would be "Oṃ O Tārā, I pray O Tārā, O Swift One, So Be It!"

This is why the name is sometimes translated as "savioress" or "rescuer". For example, in Tibetan, she is known as Jetsun Drlma ( རྗེབརྩུནསྒྲོལམ, སྒྲོལམ, Wylie: rje btsun sgrol ba), meaning "Venerable Saviour" which is derived from the Tibetan verb sgrol ba meaning "to save, rescue, liberate; to carry, transport, or cross; and to expel or drive away [evil]".[10][11]

In East Asian Buddhism she is known as 多羅菩薩 (Pinyin: Duōlu Ps), with Ps indicating bodhisattva status. In Japanese she is 多羅菩薩 たらぼさつ Tara Bosatsu.[13][better source needed] The name means "Bodhisattva who catches many" or "Bodhisattva who collects numerous [sentient beings]", derived from the characters: 羅, "to catch, gather, collect, sift," and 多 "many; much; a lot of; numerous".

The Tārāṣṭottaraśatanāmāvalī, "108 Names of [Divine Personage] Tara", is a Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit hymn which contains a set of 108 names and epithets for the deity.[14][15][16][third-party source needed]

The origin of Tārā is unclear and remains a source of inquiry among scholars. Mallar Ghosh believes her to have originated as a form of the goddess Durga.[19] Tārā is worshiped both in Buddhism as well as in Shaktism (Hinduism) as one of the ten Mahavidyas.

According to Beyer, the enlightened feminine makes its first appearance in Mahayana Buddhism as Prajāpāramitā Devi, the personified Perfection of Wisdom, who is also called mother of Buddhas.[20] Tara eventually came to be considered the "Mother of all Buddhas" by Indian tantric Buddhists, taking on this epithet from Prajaparamita. The term mother of Buddhas usually refers to a transcendent awakened wisdom, though it also echoes the ancient Indian motif of the Mother Goddess (Devi Mata).

Tārā became a very popular Vajrayana deity with the rise of tantric Buddhism in north India. Tārā worship also spread to other parts of India, as well as to Nepal, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where depictions of the deity have been discovered by archeologists. With the movement of Indian Buddhism into Tibet, the worship and practices of Tārā became incorporated into Tibetan Buddhism as well.[20][21]

As the worship of Tārā developed, various prayers, chants and mantras became associated with her. These came out of a felt devotional need, and from her inspiration causing spiritual masters to compose sadhanas, stotras, or tantric meditations.

Independent of whether she is classified as a deity, a Buddha, or a bodhisattva, Tārā remains very popular in Tibet (and Tibetan communities in exile in Northern India), Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and is worshiped in many Buddhist communities throughout the world (though in East Asian Buddhism, Guanyin is the most popular female deity). In Tibet, Green Tārā was also considered to have manifested as the Nepalese Princess (Bhrikuti),[22] and White Tārā's manifestation as the Chinese princess Kongjo (Princess Wencheng).[23]

Tārā has many origin stories which explain her origin as a bodhisattva. According to one story, Tārā arose from Avalokiteshvara's compassionate tears when he wept on seeing all the suffering of all the beings in samsara. His tears turned into a lotus, out of which Tārā arose.[24]

What was Her origin? - Arya-Lokesvara, the Lord and Refuge of the Three Realms, Desire, Form, and Formless, which depend on the five or [in the Formless Realm] four aggregates that perish in an instant, saw that however many migrating beings he removed from samsara, they grew no fewer, and He wept. Tara sprang from the opening filaments of his face - of an utpala (blue lotus) that grew in the water of His tears.[25]

At this point she lets the monks know in no uncertain terms that it is only "weak minded worldlings" who see gender as a barrier to attaining enlightenment. She sadly notes there have been few who wish to work for the welfare of sentient beings in a female form, though. Therefore, she resolves to always be reborn as a female bodhisattva, until samsara is no more.[26] She then stays in a palace in a state of meditation for some ten million years, and the power of this practice releases tens of millions of beings from suffering. As a result of this, Tonyo Drupa tells her she will henceforth manifest supreme bodhi as the Goddess Tārā in many world systems to come.

There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, "I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.[27]

Tārā, then, embodies certain ideals which make her attractive to women practitioners, and her emergence as a Bodhisattva can be seen as a part of Mahayana Buddhism's reaching out to women, and becoming more inclusive even in 6th-century CE India.

Tārā's name literally means "star" or "planet", and therefore she is associated with navigation and travel both literally and metaphorically as spiritual crossing to the "other side" of the ocean of existence (enlightenment).[12] Hence she is known literally as "she who saves" in Tibetan.[28] In the 108 Names of the Holy Tara, Tara is "Leader of the caravans ..... who showeth the way to those who have lost it" and she is named as Dhruva, the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit name for the North Star.[28] Due to her association with navigation and travel, she is thus popular as a savior and protector from danger. In modern Tibetan Buddhism, Tārā is one of the most popular deities which are appealed to by laypersons and monastics alike for aid.

Tara's main form is depicted as dark green in color, which is associated with awakened activity. In Himalayan Buddhist iconography, each color is typically associated with a specific kind of activity (for example white is pacification and red is power). Because dark green is seen as a combination of all other colors, the main form of Tārā, Green Tārā, is considered to be the source of all beneficial activities.[29]

Within Tibetan Buddhism, Tārā appears in many forms, each tied to certain colors, symbols, and beneficial activities. As Green Tārā she offers succor and protection from all the unfortunate circumstances one can encounter in the world of suffering. As White Tārā she expresses maternal compassion and offers healing to beings who are hurt or wounded, either mentally or psychically. White Tara is further associated with longevity, countering illness, and purification. Red Tārā meanwhile is associated with power, controlling and influencing others as well as with the transformation of desire into compassion. The manifestation of Blue Tārā (Ekajati) is a ferocious female protector whose invocation destroys all obstacles.[20]

Tārā is also a forest goddess, particularly in her form as Khadiravani, "dweller in the Khadira forest" and is generally associated with plant life, flowers, acacia (khadira) trees and the wind. Because of her association with nature and plants, Tārā is also known as a healing goddess (especially as White Tārā) and as a goddess of nurturing quality and fertility.[30] Her pure land, Paradise Arrayed in Turquoise Petals,[31] in Mount Potala is described as "Covered with manifold trees and creepers, resounding with the sound of many birds, And with murmur of waterfalls, thronged with wild beasts of many kinds; Many species of flowers grow everywhere."[32] Her association with the wind element (vaayu) also means that she is swift in responding to calls for any aid.

According to Miranda Shaw, "Motherhood is central to the conception of Tara".[33] Her titles include "loving mother", "supreme mother", "mother of the world", "universal mother" and "mother of all Buddhas".[34] As such, Tārā embodies many of the qualities of feminine principle. She is known as the Mother of Mercy and Compassion. She is the source, the female aspect of the universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion and relief from bad karma as experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence. She engenders, nourishes, smiles at the vitality of creation, and has sympathy for all beings as a mother does for her children.

Tārā is most often shown with the blue lotus or night lotus (utpala), which releases its fragrance with the appearance of the moon and therefore Tārā is also associated with the moon and night.[35][28]

In general, Tārā is especially seen as a savior who provides salvation and protection from the eight fears (aṣṭabhaya) or eight dangers (aṣṭaghora). This is a common theme in her iconography and she is sometimes depicted in a specific iconographical style called "Tara who protects from the eight dangers" (Tārāṣṭaghoratāraṇī).[37]

In Tibetan Buddhism, each of these outer dangers is also associated with an inner psychological meaning. As such, lions represent pride, wild elephants represent delusion, fires represent anger, snakes represent jealousy, bandits represent wrong views, bondage represent avarice, floods represent desire and attachment, and evil spirits and demons represent doubts.

With the development of esoteric or tantric Buddhism, two main ways of approaching Tara developed. In one, common folk and lay practitioners continued to directly appeal to her for protection and aid in worldly affairs, often chanting prayers, dharanis, or mantras to her and doing puja (worship rites). Tara's mantra and her twenty one verses of praise are widely learned and chanted by Tibetan laypersons.[37] Tara also became a tantric deity whose secret practices and tantric sadhanas would be used by monks and yogis in order to develop her awakened qualities in themselves, ultimately leading to Buddhahood.

c80f0f1006