The Cult of Tara

MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
pattern of her evocation and outlined her basic functions for all
future generations of writers. 41
Of the seventy-seven Indian texts that Atiia helped to translate
into Tibetan, only six deal with the goddess. Among these are two
devotional works by Candragomin and one minor hymn whose
author is not given. But much more important and influential than
these was his translation of three works on White Tara, written by
"the master and great scholar VaglSvaraklrti, empowered by the
goddess Tara," which together make up the cycle of texts known
as Cheating Death; it is from these three translations that all the
Tibetan lineages of White Tara derive. 42
We may note the pecular fact, however, that Atiia did not translate
any of the "scriptures" (ascribed as the "word of the Buddha")
dealing with the goddess, which form the textual authority for her
cult; these basic scriptures all describe the appearance, mantras, and
rites of Green Tara, the original form of the goddess, but they were
considered "Tantric" and thus proscribed as incompatible with burgeoning
Tibetan neoorthodoxy. But White Tara was a personal
revelation of VaglSvaraklrti, and her cult was not based upon his
exposition of a Tantric scripture; thus the translation and transmission
of his texts constituted the beginning of an "unbroken bridge
of the lineage" in Tibet, since her cult began with him. Atlsa could
transmit his own practices and evocations, for his charisma guaranteed
their purity: but the textual foundation for the cult of
Green Tara consisted of Tantras that might be misapplied, which,
according to tradition, Atlsa was not permitted to promulgate:
In this world era, amidst numberless Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and
"holders of the mantra" on Potala Mountain, the Noble Avalokitesvara
spoke ten million Tantras of [Green] Tara. The venerable
Naropa was, as it were, the owner of these Tantras, which are the
source for Tara, but at the time of his disciple Lhodrag Marpa
they were not transmitted to Tibet. The great and venerable
Atlsa, too, was the owner of these Tantras, and he also possessed
their commentaries; but because the Tibetans did not let him
preach the Tantras they were not promulgated. 43
This prohibition was often ascribed to Atlsa's disciple Jewe
jungne; the historian 7h6nnupe says: "Drom suspected that these
teachings might have a bad influence upon the morals of the Tibetans,
and he abstained from preaching them much." The followers
of the Kajii sect especially have never quite forgiven him for this;