The Cult of Tara

254 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
Initiated as Tara by the Buddhas,
one becomes the crown jewel of the Law . . .
when one has attained this precious initiation
one will gain all magical attainments.
So with the ritual that was explained to one,
one should firmly enterprise for half a year,
offering a torma at the three times of the day;
by this mantra, with the ritual
of flour and sugar and so on,
one will attain in a dream the sign;
and once the signs have been shown in one's dream
the magical attainments themselves will follow.
And Nagarjuna offers this comment: 31
Contemplating in this way, one should perform the recitation
neither too swiftly nor too slowly, neither indistinctly nor in small
measure, abandoning the false construction of nonreality ....
Intent upon one's object, one should contemplate for six months,
while the signs of the magical attainments arise: in the first
month, one's diseases and other impediments are pacified; in the
second month, one gets without asking the most excellent food;
in the third, one gets various garments; in the fourth, one continually
gets delicacies such as betel of various sorts; in the fifth, one
consorts with women adorned with the qualities of beauteous
form; and in the sixth month, one consorts with the divine
women of the gods.
To Nagarjuna, "excellent food" and "divine women" not only mean
the actual powers of attraction and subjugation (although that is
certainly implied), but they also symbolize an intercourse with all
the magic powers of delight, mobility, and transformation. We may
consider all these higher magical attainments, then, to be the
ability to perform what Dragpa jets'en calls "the miscellaneous
functions to take in hand the sort of people who have faith in the
ordinary magical attainments"; these general functions are the control
of public nonreality in the most direct and universal manner, as
a spontaneous and inherent result of the practitioner's understanding
and "ownership." Hence these general functions stand closest
to the soteriological function of enlightenment itself; the texts
warn of how easily one may be led astray when so close to the goal: 32
If one gives way to delight,
one's attainment will be meager;
but to one who keeps to the contemplation and recitation
even in dream will be the attainment
of universal sovereignty.