Tara is the premier savior Goddess of Tibet and is
considered to be the embodiment of all of the Buddha's
activities. Though there are two main versions of Tara
in Tibetan Buddhism, White Tara and Green Tara, the images
of the Twenty-one Tara Prayer are in honor of Green Tara
specifically.
The traditional Tibetan iconography for the twenty-one
Taras has a large central figure of Green Tara encircled
by twenty-one images, each of which illustrates one of
her aspects.
Similarly, each painting/print depicts one of these
aspects which come in four colors—white, yellow,
red, and black-that honor different facets of her abilities
and benefits to her practice.
Simplistically speaking, the white images praise her
pacifying abilities, the yellow the clearing of mental
and emotion obstructions to enlightenment, the red a
more fierce attack (even using laughter as a tool) on
entrenched patterns and the black liberating those locked
in deep karmic circumstances.
For a fuller view and explanation, I recommend reading
In Praise of Tara by Martin Wilson.
J. B-P.
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