Tara
The Goddess Tara is venerated in both Hinduism and Buddhism. She provides an important link through Tantra between Tibetan Buddhism and its parent, Hinduism.
Tara emerged as a deity in the eigth century and after. Her role was to transform Buddhism from a religion without an important female archetype into one where, increasingly the feminine was seen as something sacred and divine.
Perhaps I hear the chime of her ankled feet
Perhaps I hear a shimmering footfall in the twilight
Her laughter echoes through a sombre graveyard
Tara-the mother of compassion
When oft the weight of burdensome learning
Hangs heavy on the visage of many a learned savant
Assuming the form a light-hearted belle
She teaches them to carry learning lightly
Many are her forms; Green, White, Red, Blue
As Green Tara she brings felicity
As White Tara . she is the mother of compassion
As Blue Tara, she sublimates anger
Kurrukulla, she magnetizes objects
She of the Teak forest succored Nagarjuna
A thousand hands has she
And a thousand eyes
In each of her hands
So that she may view the suffering
Of all beings
For the infinity of beings
Requires an infinity of compassionate succor
O triumph of womanhood
Thou tookest the vow
of the Bodhisattva
To help all beings
Attain to Nirvana
And that in each of Thy incarnations
Thou tookest the further vow
That Thou wouldst always incarnate as a woman
The friend of Atisha
She was ever his guide
And helped him take
The religion of the Buddha to Tibet
To renew it afresh there
O Lady, Mother , Friend and Redeemer
Thou hast ever been the symbol of Compassion
Shunyata enformed
The Bodhisattva waiting to redeem all
And since this is never finished
Thou art always on the stile
Midway between Nirvana and sangsara
Waiting for the last sheep to cross
Into the Blessed Realm
