The Cult of Tara

234 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
Once there was a man's enemy who, under cover of night, set
a fire to burn his house. Within the house there was only one
weak girl; and, as the flames drew near, she loudly cried out to
Tara. Suddenly she saw that there was a green-colored lady
standing above the fire; rain fell down like a flood and the fire
was extinguished. Again, there was once a girl who had got a
necklace of real pearls, five hundred of them. Taking them, she
ran away in the night and sat beneath a tree. Up in the leaves
there was a snake, who descended and wrapped himself around
the girl's body. The girl cried out to Tara, and the snake was
transformed into a jeweled necklace. Sitting there for seven days,
the girl became pregnant and later gave birth to a son.
There was once a great merchant who, with five hundred
horses and a thousand camels loaded with treasure, was passing
through a wilderness. Now at that time there was a robber band
of a thousand men who had gathered to kill him and plunder his
treasure. They had already killed many merchants, and blood
and corpses were scattered about; they even nailed corpses to the
trees, hacked at their flesh, and ate them. The merchant, terrified,
called on Tara. Suddenly he saw a numberless host of
soldiers, each grasping a sword and a stick, coming out of the sky.
The thieves were routed. Again, there was once a robber chief
who left his den at night and entered into the king's storehouse.
But he drank up the wine in the storehouse and became drunk,
so that he was bound and imprisoned. He cried out to Tara, and
suddenly there appeared in the sky a five-colored bird who released
him from his fetters and flew away. That night a beautiful
girl commanded him to repent of his past sins; and thus he and
his whole band of five hundred thieves all became virtuous.
There was once a farmer who was exceedingly poor and who
experienced insurmountable hardship. He beseeched Tara to
help hirn, and suddenly a girl, whose clothing was the leaves of
trees placed over her body, instructed him to go eastward and
lie down upon a rock. The farmer accordingly went eastward
and lay down upon a rock, when all at once he heard the sound of
small horse bells and saw a green-colored horse digging in the
ground with its hoof. He waited until it left, then he got up and
dug into the hole it had made; and in the middle of it there
appeared a silver door set with the seven precious stones. He
entered in, and it was the palace of the serpent-kings and demons.
The farmer thus stayed there, and by the time he got out again
the king of his country had changed three times. When he inquired
about his family, they had all been dead for a longtime. He
thus entered a monastery and became a monk. He saw that men
and women made offerings to Tara with incense and flowers; he
bought some flowers, scattered them about, and returned. Later,