White Tara is one of the great Bodhisattvas who confers longevity on Her devotees. Her strange prowess was actually revealed to Vagishvarakirti, an Indian sage who then captured Her in a series of three texts called Cheating Death. He further passed these on to Atisha, a Buddhist master, who had these tajen to and translated into Tibetan in 1042. It is said that White Tara had always been Atisha's guardian deity, having looked after him since his childhood and appeared in his visions. Today, the White Tara practice comes to us through more than one lineages. Gampopa, Milarepa's disciple and founder of the Kagyupa Order, is one line of transmission; Gedundrup, the first Dalai Lama, is another. The thangka on this page is a picture of the devotion that She inspires in the hearts of the pure to this day.

The White Tara is the very picture of beauty and serenity. As if sculpted from a pearl, She is bedecked with gold and jewels, rubies and emeralds and turquoises no less. Her pastel-coloured silks and sashes float about Her body, setting off the graceful poorna-padmasana that She has assumed. Clouds and lotuses and wild Tibetan foliage, all quintessential elements of the traditional thangka, frame Her figure, seated as She is on a gorgeously coloured lotus in full bloom. The aureole that surrounds Her has been painted in intricate detail. The foresty green hue of Her halo, rimmed with gold lotus petals, sprouts shocks of ethereal greenery throughout the circumference. Beneath Her lotus-pedestal is a hint of the ocean's blue, at the mouth of which is a bunch of precious Buddhist offerings. Two wrathful deities surrounded by their respective flame-aureoles hold up to Her a plateful more of offerings each.

The beauteous countenance of Tara is framed by lengthened earlobes, and a tiara of gold, jewels, and flowers rests on Her brow. Her half-shut eyes radiate an otherworldly calm and collectedness possible only for a deity as powerful as She is. Note the eyes on the palms of Her hands as well as the soles of Her feet.