Notes

n.1Tārā’s name is a causative derivation from the Sanskrit root √tṝ (“to cross”), meaning “to cause to cross,” i.e., “to rescue.”

n.2In her PhD dissertation, Rachael Stevens (2010) provides a comprehensive introduction to the goddess Tārā via a literary review (pp. 11–21) and an exploration of the history of Tārā worship (pp. 20–45), the Tārā pantheon (pp. 46–56) and key Buddhist texts relating to Tārā (pp. 57–62).

n.3Beyer 1978, pp. 5–6. We find this episode in Butön Rinchen Drup’s History of Buddhism (Obermiller 1932, vol. 2, p. 184) and dramatized in Sonam Gyaltsen’s The Clear Mirror (Sonam Gyaltsen 1996, pp. 124–27).

n.4The Denkarma (ldan dkar ma) catalog of early translations, for example, lists only two works dedicated to Tārā that were translated during this time. Following Herrmann-Pfandt’s edition (2008), these are no. 439: ’phags pa lha mo sgrol ma’i mtshan brgya rtsa brgyad pa ( Tāra­devī­nāmāṣṭa­śataka , Toh 728) and no. 454: ’phags pa lha mo sgrol ma ’jigs pa thams cad las sgrol bar bstod pa (according to Herrmann-Pfandt, the identification of this title remains uncertain). One could further include no. 388: ’phags pa spyan ras gzigs kyi yum (Avalokiteśvara­mātā­dhāraṇī, The Dhāraṇī “The Mother of Avalokiteśvara” ), which does not mention the goddess Tārā but was nevertheless included within the Degé Kangyur section of Tārā-related scriptures (Toh 724–731) as Toh 725.

n.5Beyer 1978, pp. 5–13; Landesman 2008, p. 59; Stevens 2010, pp. 36–37.

n.6Note that there is a discrepancy among various databases for cataloging the Toh 1001 version of this text within vol. 101 or 102 of the Degé Kangyur. See Toh 1001, note 6, for details.

n.7Toh 731, ’phags ma sgrol ma ’jigs pa brgyad las skyob pa’i mdo. See translation in Samye Translations, Tārā Who Protects from the Eight Dangers , 2020.

n.8E.g., Toh 1686, 1688, 1697, and 1705.

n.9Butön Rinchen Drup, gsung ’bum, folio 218.b.6–7; Beyer 1978, pp. 280–81.

n.10E.g., Toh 1324, 1325, 1326, 1327, etc.

n.11No. 93, Bhattacharyya 1925, pp. 178–83.

n.12This can be translated as “Homage to the Three Jewels! Homage to Noble Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva mahāsattva, the great compassionate one!”

n.13As noted above, tārā is a causative derivation from the Skt. root √tṝ, “to cross,” thus meaning “to cause to cross,” that is, “to deliver” or “rescue.” It can be argued that the term tuttāre consists of tārā prefixed with ud (ud + √tṝ = uttārā), which is then further prefixed with the consonant t- to avoid a morphological fusion of final vowel of tāre and the initial vowel in uttārā. The addition of the prefix ud conveys a sense of “pulling up,” and thus “saving.” In the translation below, the vocative forms tāre and tuttāre are respectively translated as “deliverer” and “savior.”

n.14This can be tentatively translated as “Oṁ! Deliverer! Savior! Swift One! Crush, paralyze, confound, restrain all wicked and evil beings for me! hūṁ hūṁ hūṁ phaṭ phaṭ phaṭ! Homage to Tārā, the suppressor of all evil beings!”