The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 65
monks then said to the princess, "is to make an earnest wish that your
body (with which you attend to the teachings) may become that of
a man, for surely this desire will be granted." She replied: "Since
there is no such thing as a 'man'or a 'woman' (and no such thing as
a ' self' or a ' person' or ' awareness') this bondage to male and female
is hollow: Oh how worldly fools delude themselves !" And this is the
earnest wish she made: "Those who wish to attain supreme enlightenment
in a man's body are many, but those who wish to serve the
aims of beings in a woman's body are few indeed; therefore may I,
until this world is emptied out, serve the aim of beings with nothing
but the body of a woman."
Then the princess remained in meditation in the palace for a
thousand billion years, and she thereby attained to an acknowledgment
that events do not arise; she entered into the meditation called
Saving All Beings, and by the power of that meditation she rescued
from their worldly minds a thousand billion beings every morning
and fixed them in their attainment of acceptance; and she did not
eat until she had done so. Every evening she fixed therein the
same number of beings, and she thus became famed as Tara, the
Savioress.
Then, in the world era called Vastly Extended, the princess took
a vow in the presence of the Tathagata Amoghasiddhi that she would
protect from harm all the sentient beings throughout the numberless
realms of the ten directions. She settled into the meditation
called Defeating All Maras and thereby fixed in contemplative
meditation ten billion billion lords of beings each day, and each
night she tamed a thousand billion masters of the Heaven of Power
Over the Visions of Others. Thus her name became famed as Quick
One and Heroine.
Then, in the world era called Beginningless, a monk named Stainless
Light was initiated by the light of great compassion of all the
Tathagatas of the ten directions, and he became the noble AvalokitesVara.
Then, initiated by the great light whose inherent nature was
the superior knowledge of all the Tathagatas of the ten directions,
the two lights—of compassion and of understanding—mixed together
in the manner of a father and mother and transformed into
Tara; and she, born from the heart of the noble Lord of the World,
protects beings from the eight and the sixteen great terrors. 95
These mythological renewals of Tara's vows, her creation from
initiatory light, symbolize to the Tibetans the source of her divine