The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 63
thing to Tara, knowing that she knows all about you, just as it says,
then the holy Tara will cleave to you, and you will see her face; no
obstacle will harm you, and you will gain all your desires; the
Buddhas and their sons will cleave to you, because you will have
pleased them. . . . This is my heartfelt belief."
THE POPULAR CULT: RITUAL
In K'am the sixth month was summer, and summer was the time
for picnics. When the hills were covered with flowers and the
weather was good, each village—as many as two hundred tents—
would camp in a valley among the flowers and worship Tara, thanking
her for past favors and praying for future kindness. Each family
set up its own tent, forming a circle around the large tent in the
middle; the main tent, white with blue decorations, was for the
performance of the ritual, and the smaller tents were for cooking
food, for playing knucklebones and Mah-Jongg, and for reading
stories. There was a space for dancing the interminable lines and
circles of the K'am dances and, outside, an area where the men
could race their horses and shoot at targets from horseback; inside
the main tent was a circular table before the altar where the women
and children piled up the flowers they had brought from the hills.
For the first two days the villagers worshiped Avalokitesvara, and
then, for three to six days, they performed the ritual of the Four
Mandala Offering to Tara.
There would be only a half-dozen monks performing this ritual,
monks unattached to a monastery who lived permanently in the
village; the rest of the tent was filled with lay people. Every day the
same ritual was performed, lasting from about eight to ten o'clock in
the morning, for the people could not eat meat or drink sharp
liquor and sweet still beer until the performance had been completed.
All the children sang and shouted together, and when each mandala
was offered up there was a rain of flowers as everyone threw in the
air what he had gathered from the hillsides. There were no monastic
strictures on this holiday; when the ritual reached a part that everyone
knew, such as the Homages lo the Twenty-one Taras, all the people
repeated it together. Then, after lunch, came the games, the races,
the children wrestling and playing tug-of-war, the drinking of large
quantities of beer, and the calm and gossip of the old people sitting
by the tents with their prayer wheels,,