Art of the Day: Green Tara This Buddhist “tangka” (or “thanka,&rdq
Art of the Day: Green Tara This Buddhist “tangka” (or “thanka,” scroll painting) depicts the enlightened Buddha and compassionate goddess Tara, sitting on a lotus in her mountain paradise. Tara navigates men and women across the negative emotions that prevent them from attaining supreme peace and happiness, or “nirvana.” Here, Tara replicates herself in order to save devotees from the eight great fears, each of which has a symbolic meaning. Appearing in smaller scale to the left and right of the central goddess, Tara’s eight emanations offer protection from lions (pride), elephants (delusion), fire (hatred), snakes (envy), thieves (false views), imprisonment (greed), floods (lust), and demons (doubt). A Tibetan inscription on the back of the painting indicates that it was the meditational image of the spiritual master Chason Dru-o (d. 1175) of the Kadam order. Another inscription identifies the central image as “The Reting deity,” meaning that Green Tara was the principal deity of the Reting monastery, located in Tibet. Learn more about this object in our art site: http://bit.ly/2QenDVl -- source link