Vadipramardani Tara, Who Crushes All Adversaries [7/21]

༄༅། །རྒོལ་བ་འཇོམས་པའི་སྒྲོལ་མ་།།
ཕྱག་འཚལ་ཏྲཊ་ཅེས་བྱ་དང་ཕཊ་ཀྱིས།
།ཕ་རོལ་འཁྲུལ་འཁོར་རབ་ཏུ་འཇོམས་མ། །
གཡས་བསྐུམ་གཡོན་བརྐྱང་ཞབས་ཀྱིས་མནན་ཏེ།
།མེ་འབར་འཁྲུག་པ་ཤིན་ཏུ་འབར་མ། །

Homage to Tara of TRAT and PHET, majestic and kind,
by whose protection every obstruction,
leaving none, is undone and each calamity stilled;
her right leg drawn up, her left extended,
she abides within a wheel of fire
blazing with radiance.

Nghi quỹ tu trì Lục Độ Phật Mẫu, Drukpa lineage

Tara “who crushes every obstruction” appears in a fierce form, four-armed, wholly black in colour, her wrathful face with two glaring eyes. Her tawny locks stand upright like tongues of flame. She commonly appears standing in the pratyalidha posture and wearing a tiger-skin loincloth, though in this painting she sits in the sattva paryanka posture upon a golden sun disc and a golden — or red — lotus. She is adorned with divine silk garments and jewel ornaments.

In her first right hand she holds a golden wheel, and in her second right hand a blazing iron sword. In her first left hand she holds a noose at the level of her navel, and her second left hand shows the tarjani gesture with the forefinger raised. In this painting, however, she is shown forming the protective gesture of fearlessness (abhaya mudra). Above her crown appears the buddha Ratnasambhava. She has the power to triumph over every hostility, and to carry the faithful to the Pure Land at the moment of death.

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