Khadiravani Tara, or Varada Tara [9/21]

༄༅། །མཆོག་སྩོལ་བའི་སྒྲོལ་མ་།།
ཕྱག་འཚལ་དཀོན་མཆོག་གསུམ་མཚོན་ཕྱག་རྒྱའི།
།སོར་མོས་ཐུགས་ཀར་རྣམ་པར་བརྒྱན་མ། །
མ་ལུས་ཕྱོགས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོས་བརྒྱན་པའི།
།རང་གི་འོད་ཀྱི་ཚོགས་རྣམས་འཁྲུགས་མ། །

Homage to Tara who seals the Three Jewels,
her fingers joined in the gesture at her heart,
the precious wheel majestic across the sky;
the radiance of her jewelled body
shines out into every quarter,
glorious wherever it falls.

Nghi quỹ tu trì Lục Độ Phật Mẫu, Drukpa lineage

In Sanskrit, khadiravani denotes the grove (vana) of fragrant acacia (khadira) trees, and this form of Green Tara is commonly depicted with two attendant deities: the peaceful golden Marici standing to her right, and the wrathful blue-black Ekajata to her left. In the Suryagupta tradition Green Tara commonly appears as the ninth of the twenty-one Taras, though Varada Tara — described below — may also stand in that place.

Tara “who bestows the blessing of attainment”. She sits in the vajra paryanka or the sattva paryanka posture upon a white moon disc and a red lotus. She is peaceful and red in colour, with one face, two eyes and four arms, adorned with divine silk garments and jewel ornaments.

As with Pravira Tara, she holds a vajra and a bell (ghanta) in her first pair of hands, raised together above the crown of her head in the gesture of great bliss (mahasukha mudra). Her second right hand shows the gesture of the “snapping fingers of the Dharma rain”. Her second left hand holds the fruiting branch of an ashoka tree, from whose leaves falls a “rain of jewels” that satisfies every wish of beings. Above her crown appears the green buddha Amoghasiddhi. Her practice is connected with rites of consecration and blessing.

Curated and synthesised by
Jigme

References

1. Beer, Robert. “Twenty-One Taras (Suryagupta Tradition)”. Tibetan Buddhist and Newar Tantric Art. Accessed September 15, 2024. https://www.tibetanart.com/Product.asp?PID=10

2. The Gyalwang Drukpa. Nghi quỹ tu trì Lục Độ Phật Mẫu, Ý Nghĩa và Hướng Dẫn Thực Hành. Hà Nội: NXB Tôn Giáo, 2021.

3. Tsem Rinpoche. “Suryagupta’s 21 Taras”. Accessed September 15, 2024. https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/suryaguptas-21-taras.html