Tara is the most popular female deity in the Tibetan pantheon, and the practice of her invocation and worship is common in other Asian countries as well; Her origin seems to go back to India, where she mixes with other mother goddesses like Durga.
The name Tara (pronounced taaraa, since in Sanskrit it has two long vowels Tare) It has a very wide semantic field. On the one hand the word «tara» means star and also the pupil of the eye; on the other hand it comes from the verbal root to cross or swim. Hence, it is said that Tara is the one who helps to cross the waters of illusion, suffering or samsara towards the shore of liberation; and, like a star, guides in spiritual navigation. She too is linked with Venus, both as a mother goddess and in her evening star aspect. It manifests as 21 different Taras, among them the most popular are Green Tara, Red Tara and White Tara (all of them tantric deities of the vajrayana practices in which the practitioner visualizes himself as Tara and builds an imaginal body of light). She is associated with Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom in Mahayana Buddhism, which is sometimes personified as a female deity and which gives its name to a series of sutras (texts revealed by the Buddha) that would have been discovered by Nagarjuna.
Arya Tara (the venerable Tara) is enormously beloved among Buddhists, as it presents a kind of feminist and somewhat ecumenical revolution within Buddhism. According to a legend Tara was the princess Yeshe Dawa (jnana chandra in Sanskrit; Princess Moon Wisdom) in an ancient system where the Drum Sound Buddha resided; there she reached the state of bodhisattva in which she could choose how to reincarnate and she chose to always reincarnate as a woman (something that constitutes a rarity, although the Buddhas are neither men nor women, their gender and form is only a method to teach). Thus Tara for eons has taken the female form to help and inspire individuals living in ignorance of samsara to find the path to enlightenment.
Another story points out that Green Tara is the emanation of Avalokiteshavara, the Buddha of Compassion. When Avalokiteshvara was on a high mountain, he looked out over the oceans of samsara and watched the ceaseless torment of beings. From his purest compassion two tears were shed. A tear fell from his right eye, which was Bhrikuti, who was later reabsorbed by Avalokiteshvara and would later reincarnate as Princess Tritsun. Another tear fell from her left eye, which became Tara, who at birth called out to all Dharma practitioners and offered to intercede for her suffering, as a faithful companion to all who take the path of the bodhisattva.
This is the mantra associated with Green Tara:
Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Soha (The last word is usually pronounced Svāhā by Tibetans; v has a soft sound close to u.)
The mantra is a kind of call to Tara to intercede, destroy obstacles and expedite our enlightenment. Variations of the name «Tara» are used as devout petitions to elicit compassionate sweetness from her. «Om» represents the primordial cosmic sound, the state of essential illumination of all things; tare represents liberation from worldly suffering; tuttare represents individual spiritual liberation; ture represents the universal spiritual liberation and the Soha is an affirmation, similar to «so be it», and signifies the idea of enlightenment taking root in me.
Green Tara is especially recognized for removing obstacles. She is depicted in a posture in which she is ready to act, reckless, sitting in the meditative state but with one leg off her throne, showing her decisive dynamic. That is why it is said that her main quality «is an extraordinary compassionate resolution to benefit sentient beings by removing the causes that lead them to fear or anxiety.»
Green Tara has the characteristic of freeing from the eight obstacles or obscurations that her counterpart of material protection has about certain dangers: pride (represented with a lion), ignorance (wild elephants), hatred or anger (fire), envy (snakes), wrong view (thieves), greed (bondage), desire and attachment (floods) and delusional doubts (evil spirits or demons). It is said to be tuttare the term that protects from these eight external and internal damages.
It is said that his mantra is especially effective when used while visualizing another person, that is, imagining that Tara comes to benefit another person who is suffering difficulties. We can then turn to Tara as a graceful and expeditious emissary of our kind and compassionate wishes to others.