The Cult of Tara

APPLICATION 235
the king of the country heard about these wonders, and he married
the farmer to his daughter. When the king died, the farmer
ruled the country, and he repaired the 108 buildings of the Tara
temple.
In India, at the time of the Great King Asoka, there was a very
rich elder whom the king hated and whose life he wished to harm.
Imperial orders were dispatched to apprehend the elder. The
elder was afraid and called out to Tara. When the guards' feet
trod on his doorstep it turned to gold, and the elder presented it
to the king. When they put him in jail, jewels fell from the sky
like rain, and these too he presented to the king. And when
withered trees became laden with fruits and flowers, the king
released him and made him a great minister.
Beyond the simple cry of Tara's name, in these stories the afflicted
recite her mantra to gain her protection; and, as the second of the
following stories indicates, the more people who recite it and the more
often it is recited the more effective it becomes:
There were once five thousand men together in a great ship who
went to sea to gather treasure, and they came to a place where
there was much red sandalwood. But the serpent-king of the place
was displeased; and when the men were returning they suddenly
met with a great wind, which seized the boat and blew it about,
while the seas ran heavy about them. The men on the ship were
all terrified; there were some who cried out to the gods of the sun
and the moon, but to no avail. The rigging broke; peril took ten
thousand forms. At the very moment of life or death, a man
recited the mantra of Tara; the wind suddenly blew the ship in
the opposite direction, and in only one evening conveyed the men
on the ship, together with their treasure, back to their home.
Again, there was once in India a novice monk traveling the road
who saw beside the path offerings to a heavenly spirit; but he just
kicked them aside and passed on. The spirit was enraged and
hurled thunder to kill him. The novice monk cried out to Tara
in his fright, and he escaped. He asked five hundred men to
recite the mantra of Tara, and thunder never hurt anyone again.
These stories, beneath the wonders of their folktale trappings,
conveyed to their audience the edifying and rather hyperbolic point
made above: the simplest cry of suffering to Tara, the merest mention
of her name, or the most perfunctory recitation of her mantra
is enough to ensure her protection against all the terrors of this
world. But we may note in the last few stories a point to which we
shall return: the power of her mantra seems in the process of dis-