Samaya Tara Yogini

The iconographic subject of this composition is a rare form of the Buddhist goddess Arya Tara. This form of the goddess was believed to be first introduced to West Tibet from India in the late 16th century. The style of painting is from Eastern Tibet and a product of Palpung Monastery of the mid 18th century, and known as 'Palpung Style Painting.' Sometimes referred to as belonging the tradition of 'Karma Gari' painting. This particular example is one of only a very small number of paintings that qualifies as the very best representations, of the highest quality, developed and promoted under the patronage of Situ Panchen Chokyi Jungne (1700-1774).

Dark green in colour, semi-peaceful and semi-wrathful, Samaya Tara Yogini has one face, three eyes and eight hands. The four right hands hold an arrow tipped with a utpala flower, a double-sided damaru (hand drum) and curved knife. The lowest hand with the palm facing outward performs the gesture of generosity. The left hands hold a blue lotus blossom with the stem held to the heart, a bow constructed of utpala flowers, a trident and blood filled skullcup. An ornate katvanga staff rests against the left shoulder. Adorned with a tiara of five skulls, gold earrings, bracelets and anklets of bone, she wears a necklace of fifty freshly severed heads and a lower garment of tiger skin. On a sun disc and lotus seat pressing down on various figures representing obstacles and hindrances, she sits in a relaxed manner surrounded by the brightly burning stylized flames of the fires of pristine awareness. The surrounding halo is very detailed with an inner red circle of a vine and foliage design encircled by three rings, orange, light green and dark green. Outside of that is a very wide final circle of multi-coloured idealized flames representing the five wisdoms which are the constituents of the ultimate pristine awareness.

At the top center is the primordial buddha for Vajrayana Buddhism, Vajradhara, blue in colour, embracing a light blue coloured consort. To the lower left is Shakyamuni Buddha and again to the lower left is Chaturbhuja Avalokiteshvara. To the lower right is Sita Achala, wrathful in appearance, white in colour, holding a sword upraised and in a kneeling posture. Below that is an unidentified Indian teacher holding a book in the proper right hand.

At the mid level of the composition on the left and right sides are four individuals. The two upper figures are unidentified Indian teachers with one of them possibly being Buddhagupta Nata who is believed to have introduced the teaching of Samaya Tara Yogini to Tibet in the late 16th century. The two lower figures to the left side are Taranata Kunga Nyingpo (1575-1635) and the figure on the right side is Katog Tsewang Norbu (1698-1755) an important teacher of Situ Panchen Chokyi Jungne (1700-1774) the founder of Palpung monastery in Eastern Tibetan province of Kham.

Situ Panchen developed his own unique style of painting referring to it as 'his own new style' although heavily influenced by previous styles of Central Tibet. For the deity figures, both peaceful and wrathful, he mainly promoted the tradition of the 15th century artist Khyentse Chenmo and his style of painting. The open landscape and use of negative space was a characteristic of Eastern Tibetan painting likely influenced also by neighbouring Chinese aesthetics.

The main characteristics of Situ Panchen's style are a large central figure with small generously spaced secondary figures or narrative vignettes. Some examples of works have no discernable sky or foreground landscape. Colour is often subdued and can be more muted and pastel like. Situ believed that ethnic groups should be drawn with their own regional costume, ornaments and headdress and specifically mention Indians, Chinese and Kashmiri peoples.

At the lower left side is another unidentified Indian teacher is a mahasiddha appearance wearing a tiger-skin skirt and adorned with bone ornaments and a human head style crown. Two attendant women and an anthropomorphic figure with a lion head kneels in front. At the right side of the composition is a relatively unknown form of the Shri Devi, blue in colour, wrathful in appearance with four arms and various attributes. She rides atop a female tigress and is surrounded by smoky flames and various cemetery and charnal ground scenes.

Iconographic depictions of Samaya Tara are typically of three compositional types. The simplest of paintings might depict a single figure of Samaya Tara, or possibly with a few figures of the patrons choice. A more complex floating figure composition would have Tara at the center with the retinue figures from her cycle of practice arranged surrounding her. The most complex composition would be the full mandala with a central palace and surrounding enclosure and circle of fire. The Tara at the center would have all of the secondary retinue figures placed in the proper direction with door guardians at the entrances to the square palace.

Samaya Tara Yogini (Tibetan: dam tsig drol ma nal jor ma): from the mandala of twenty-five deities from the Sanskrit root text Samajaparamarthasarvakaramodaya-nama-tarayoginitantraraja and the samajaparamarthasarvakarmodaya-uttaratantraraja [Toh 448, 449].

Samaya Tara Yogini Lineage of Teachers: Jaya Vajradhara, Bhagavani Arya Tara, mahasiddha Tailo Prajnabhadra, mahasiddha Lilavajra, Rahulagupta, Lord Dipamkara, Bum Sengge, Tatva Shrimitra, Sanghashri, Ratnadvaja, Nayakashri, Dharmashri, Shakya Rakshita, Sujata, Buddhashri Mitra, Jnana Ratna, Jnana Vajra, Ratigupta, Shantigupta, Buddhagupta Nata, Taranata (b.1575), etc.

Jeff Watt 3-2026