Buddhist Deity: Source Texts, Chronological (Tara Six Topics)
Tara Six Topics Page | Tara Source TextsSource Texts:
- Description (below)
- Text Types (below)
--- Source (Indian Texts)
--- Commentarial (Indian Texts)
--- Tibetan Traditions, Translators & Texts
--- Later Tibetan Sources: Pure Vision, Revealed Treasure
- Confusions: Traditions, Lineages, Schools, Translators
- Others...
The original source texts listed below might be informative but not immediately helpful in organizing and contextualizing the iconographic forms and lineage traditions of Tara. Much of how Tara is understood and practiced in Tibetan and Himalayan Buddhism is shaped by the commentaries and meditational texts composed by the scholars and siddhas of India. These texts are very well represented in the various Tangyur sections of the Tibetan Buddhist canons.
Videos:
- Tara Source Texts, Part 1 (HAR on Patreon [16 min.])
- Tara Source Texts, Part 2
- English Book Reviews (below)
Indian Texts:
Earliest Source Text: (Tara Texts 84000 List)
1. Manjushri Mula Kalpa (Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa, Toh 543, 493 pages)
Three Large Texts
1. The Great Practice Manual of Tārā of the Upswept Tresses (āryatārāmūlakalpa, Toh 724, 244 pages)
2. The Subsequent Tantra of Tārā of the Upswept Tresses (*ūrdhvajaṭottaratantra, Toh 724a, 369 pages)
3. The Tantra of Tārā, Source of All the Different Activities (tārāviśvakarmabhavatantra, Toh 726, 31 pages)
Praise to the Twenty-One Taras:
1. Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage (Namastāraikaviṃśatistotra, Toh 438, 3 pages)
Eight Fears:
1. Tārā Who Protects from the Eight Dangers (Tārāṣṭaghoratāraṇī, Toh 732, 5 pages)
Two Texts of the Hundred and Eight Names:
1. The Hundred and Eight Names of Tārā (tārābhaṭṭārikānāmāṣṭaśatakam, Toh 727/745/1000, 5 pages)
2. The Hundred and Eight Names of Tārā (tāradevīnāmāṣṭaśatakam, Toh 728, 7 pages)
Two Small Dharani Texts:
1. The Incantation of Tārā (Toh 729/1001, 1 page)
2. The Incantation, Tārā's Own Promise (tārāsvapratijñādhāraṇī, Toh 730/1002, 2 pages)
Miscellaneous:
1. The Tantra of Siddhaikavīra. (Siddhaikavīratantram, Toh 544, 24 pages)
2. The Tantra of the Vajra Cage Vajrapanjara Tantra, Toh 419, 72 pages)
3. The Practice Manual of Noble Tārā Kurukullā. (Āryatārākurukullākalpa, Toh 437, 27 pages)
Indian Commentaries:
Toh 1688. A Praise of the Bhagavatī Tārā, A Sādhana of Her Twenty-One Forms. (Bhagavatītārādevyekaviṃśatistotropāyikā, བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་སྒྲོལ་མ་ལ་བསྟོད་པ་ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་པའི་སྒྲུབ་ཐབས། · bcom ldan 'das ma sgrol ma la bstod pa nyi shu rtsa gcig pa'i sgrub thabs). pages. By Suryagupta.
Toh 1689. A Praise of the Twenty-one Forms of the Goddess Tārā called “The Utterly Pure Crown Jewel” (Devītāraikaviṃśatistotraviśuddhacūḍāmaṇināma, ལྷ་མོ་སྒྲོལ་མ་ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ལ་བསྟོད་པ། རྣམ་དག་གཙུག་གི་ནོར་བུ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ། · lha mo sgrol ma nyi shu rts gcig la bstod pa/ rnam dag gtsug gi nor bu zhes bya ba). By Suryagupta
Tibetan Texts:
- Mani Kabum of Nyangral Nyima Ozer (1124-1192)
- Origin of the Tara Tantra by Jonang Taranata (1575-1635)
- Others...
Book Reviews: (English Bibliography)
- Manjushri Root Tantra (Manjushri Mula Kalpa). 84000 Translating the Words of the Buddha [6.5 min.]
- In Praise of Tara, Songs to the Saviouress by Martin Willson [3.5 min.]
- The Śakti Cult and Tara. Edited by D.C. Sircar [3 min.]
- The Cult of Tara by Stephen Beyer [4 min.]
- The Origin of Tara Tantra by Jonang Taranatha [4 min.]
- Tara: The Feminine Divine by Bokar Rinpoche [3.5 min]
- The Tara Tantra: Tara's Fundamental Ritual Text (Tara-mula-kalpa) by Susan A. Landesman. Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences. Columbia University, 2020
Jeff Watt 7-2026
(The images below are only a selection of examples from the links above).
