In Praise of Tārā

Translator's Introduction

Not long after his return from India, the great polymath Gendün Chöpel was thrown into prison on trumped up charges of forging currency. He was first confined at Nangtseshar, Lhasa’s central jail, and later at the Shol prison at the foot of the Potala Palace. A trunk containing his many writings from his travels across the Indian subcontinent was also confiscated, never to be returned. This was a blow more painful than the fifty lashes he received and marked the start of his descent into alcoholism, ill health, and his eventual demise.

While in prison, Gendün Chöpel prayed fervently to the goddess Tārā, accumulating no fewer than one hundred thousand prayers. The Buddhist deity Tārā, whose name literally means “Savioress,” is known for her swiftness in freeing her devotees from the eight great dangers (aṣṭamahābhaya), the seventh of which is imprisonment. Gendün Chöpel was an accomplished artist and is also said to have completed a thangka painting of Tārā while in prison which brought him solace during this challenging period.[1] Eventually, when Gendün Chöpel was released from captivity, he ascribed this to the blessings of the noble lady Tārā.[2]

The title “A Praise to Tārā” was, in most likelihood, affixed to this work not by Gendün Chöpel himself but by later editors. Indeed, the text seems to belong less to the genre of praise (bstod pa) than it does the genre of supplication prayers (gsol ’debs). Its first stanza invokes Tārā as the embodiment of the awakened activity of all buddhas. Indeed, the quality Tārā is most known for is her swiftness in enacting awakened activities, whether they be granting protection or bestowing spiritual accomplishment. We can see Gendün Chöpel’s longing and devotion as he calls upon her, not only for himself, but on behalf of all living beings who seek freedom, whether that be from a prison cell or liberation from saṃsāra.

The first three lines in the second stanza correspond to Tārā’s “three secrets”—her awakened body, speech, and mind. The final line, which acts as a refrain repeated at the end of each stanza, is the actual supplication, beseeching the goddess with humility and surrender. The third and final stanza echoes the hardships that Gendün Chöpel endured on his journeys through “unfamiliar lands” like British India and Ceylon where he did not travel as a grand lama but as a simple monk or an itinerant vagabond. This feeds into a deeper metaphor for saṃsāra and its suffering as seen in his plea to the goddess to be a refuge that can save us from the “terrifying precipices” of cyclic existence. Tārā is thus the ultimate guide for the destitute travelers on the road, whether it be the road through life or the spiritual path.

There are several Indian deities who appear in both the Buddhist and Hindu pantheons, including Tārā. Interestingly though, Gendün Chöpel concluded in his Grains of Gold that the goddess Tārā of the Buddhists and the non-Buddhists are, in fact, two entirely distinct deities who simply share the same name:

Tārā is considered to be another name for Kālī. In chapter 12 of the Hindu tantra Elegant Postures of Kālī, one hundred eight names of Tārā appear. Although there are names in common between that list and our own one hundred eight names [of Tārā], they are similar in name only. [For the Hindus, she] does not appear as a goddess, blue-green in color and with one face and two arms. Thus, Tārā is not to be considered a deity common to Hinduism and Buddhism.[3]

We may never know whether the present Tārā prayer was composed during his internment or whether the thangka painting of White Tārā was the one he painted in prison.[4] It is, nevertheless, inspiring to read the heartfelt prayer of a master with a lifelong devotion to the goddess, a man who believed that his freedom from the great danger of imprisonment was accomplished through the interdependence of his prayers and her blessings.