The Cult of Tara

258 MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
Thus most communal ritual activity centers upon the ritual of
evocation, with the ritual of offering as a specialized and abbreviated
version thereof. The full-scale evocation provides the most complete
outline of ritual activities, and the particular ritual types may often
be seen as selections from this thoroughgoing program or as emphases
upon one or another of its portions. It may, then, aid our
understanding of what follows if we here reproduce the complete
outline of an evocation of Tara, which forms the skeleton of Kongtrii
rinpoch'e's extensive corpus upon the goddess: 34
1 Preparations: cleaning the assembly hall, erecting the altar,
and so on
2 Basics
2.1 Preliminaries
2.11 Evoking the cleansing water
2.12 Expelling hindering demons and erecting a circle of
protection
2.13 Empowering the place and the utensils
We may note briefly that these preliminaries are actually a magical
function, utilizing both the device of the cleansing water and the
direct imposition upon nonreality of the visualized circle of protection;
many rituals add further a preliminary ritual function, wherein
the hindering demons are summoned before the assembly and offered
a "preliminary torma" as a bribe to depart the sacred precincts: if they
do not accept they are then forcibly and magically expelled with the
fierce mantra and the "magic mustard seed."
The first part of the ritual begins, consisting, as we have noted,
in the following:
mantra generation ritual element function
contemplation self— ritual service soteriological
2.2 Ritual proper
2.21 Self-generation
2.211 Preliminaries
2.211.1 Ordinary
2.211.11 Going for refuge
2.211.12 Awakening the thought of enlightenment
2.211.2 Extraordinary
2.211.21 The stock of merit: the sevenfold office
2.211.22 The stock of knowledge: the SONY ATA mantra