The Cult of Tara

58 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
A dream like that must certainly be auspicious:
but I pray my husband tell me what it signifies.
(Narrator:]
When she told him this, the man was overjoyed, and he answered
her in the following words.
[Kiinzang dech'en:]
My fair-faced wife through all my former lives,
my lady Nyangts'a sedron: listen to me.
Although there are, indeed, false and frenzied dreams,
this one is a prophecy of the future.
The light from the syllable TAM in the heart of the holy Tara
which dissolved in the center of your heart
is a sign that within your heart dwells the blessing of Tara,
who is the active power of all the Buddhas of the three times.
The growth of a lotus flower in your body
is a sign that this will grow into the foremost of all dakinis.
The gathering of a host of bees from all directions
and their finding a promised treasure of nectar
are signs that she will serve the aims of beings,
all the hosts, pure and impure, whom she will take in hand
with body, speech, and mind.
Though we had no son in our youth, when our teeth were white,
we shall have a daughter in our old age, when our hair is white.
And when she is born, surely she will be better than a son,
so let us pay homage to the gods in all directions.
This dream is good, Nyangts'a sedron;
let your mind rejoice, Kiinzang dech'en 1
[Narrator:]
And so they made offerings upward to the Three Jewels, gave
gifts downward to those in the evil destinies, and paid reverence
in between to the assembly of monks; and they did so abundantly.
By the power thereof a daughter was born in the Earth-Male-
Horse year, in the bright half of the Month of the'Monkey, during
the Holiday of the Assembly of Dakinis, the tenth day, a Thursday,
when the Two Kings were in conjunction in the sky.
No sooner had she. been born than she joined the palms of her
hands together and, as though casting skyward a first offering of
her mother's milk, she spoke the following words.
[Nangsa obum:]
I make offering and homage to the holy Tara,
the most excellent mother,
giving birth to the Conquerors of the three times 1