Buddhist Deity: Tara Iconography
Tara Main PageSix Principal Iconographic Categories:
- Green Tara
- White Tara
- Red Tara
- Eight Fears Tara
- Twenty-one Taras
- Miscellaneous Forms of Tara
- Tara with Consort
--- Tara: Seventeen Deity Mandala
--- White Tara (Khyentse)
Subjects, Topics & Types:
- Tara Iconography
- Forms (Textual)
- Compendium Paintings
- Female Imagery Introduction
- Confusions
- Others...
Outline Pages:
- Tara: General Outline Page
- Green Tara Outline
- White Tara Outline
- Red Tara Outline
- Twenty-one Taras Outline Page
- Eight Fears Outline Page
Iconographic Subjects:
- Standing (Sculpture)
- Sculpture, non-standard
- Relaxed Posture (Sculpture)
- Repeated Figure Paintings
- Wrathful Tara (Various Forms)
- Confusions
- Others...
The most common forms of Tara are the green which is considered special for all types of activities, white for longevity and red for power. The different forms of Tara come in all colours, numbers of faces, arms and legs, peaceful, semi-peaceful and wrathful. There are simple meditational forms representing a single figure and then there are complex forms with large numbers of retinue figures filling all types of mandala configurations. There are likely to be close to two hundred different meditational forms of Tara.
Jeff Watt [updated 4-2017, 3-2020]
(The images below are only a selection of examples from the links above).
