Tara the Devi

I want to investigate Tara, the Goddess. She is found in Hinduism, Buddhism and is a Celtic Goddess of Ireland too. I have also found some references to her as being found in Chinese culture but also in Native American culture as the Star Woman. Depictions of Tara have been found in caves and there is a believe from these that her worship could go back as far as 30,000 years. this goes some way towards explaining how she appears in so many cultures. In Latin she is Terra, in Scandinavia she is Tar, to a South American tribe she is Tarahumara.

I am going to start with Tara the Devi of Hinduism...

A Devi is a Goddess, an aspect of the divine feminine known as Shakti.

She is the second of the ten Goddesses of great wisdom which are aspects of the feminine ranging across the spectrum. She is guide, protector and saviour. She offers knowledge as salvation. She is the star that self combusts. She is the unquenchable desire that propels all life. She is the words and the mantra and the music. She can englamour you. She is the supreme creator and mother of all buddhas and bodhivistas. She is the mother of liberation. she is the virtue of success from work and achievements. She embodies womans ability to survive terrifying times. She can be fierce and wild. she helps us centre and be at one. She helps us journey through the depths of our minds.

She governs the underworld, the earth and the heavens. She has power over birth, death, love, war, regeneration, the seasons, the lunar cycle, all that lives and grows

Kali is the foremost of the wisdom Goddesses but there are many similarities between the depiction of the two Goddesses. Lord Shiva actually forbade seeing any difference between them, that they were aspects of each other. In the hymns which list there names they both have each others names listed. Tara is more maternal and approachable than Kali

Tara is blue with a tiger skin shirt and a necklace of severed human heads. Her tongue lolls and blood oozes from her mouth. She has four arms and carries a sword, scissors, a lotus and a severed head or skull cap.

The Hindu Gods and Demons were churning the oceans which created a poision which the Lord Shiva drank. He saved the world but turned his throat blue. In his unconscious state Tara came an laid him in her lap and allowed him to suckle. Her milk saves him.

She has a liking for blood and practices involve depictions of her having sex with Mahakala which were engraved in copper and then smeared with menstrual blood.

An old lady made a statue of Tara but then realised she had made it facing the wrong way so that is faced away from Mahabodhi (I think this is a temple?). She felt awful but the statue spoke to her and turned the other way out of compassion to the old lady.

She is a Goddess to help us find our lost feminine.