The appearance of Buddha Tara and the comparison to Hindu goddesses (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Theology - Comparative Religion Studies, grade: 1.3, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Lehrstuhl für Religionswissenschaften), course: Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Ritual Practices: Architectural and Pictoral Contexts, language: English, abstract: In this examination there will be the effort to examine the relation between the Buddhist and Hindu Goddess of Tara in relation to Hindu goddesses such as Kali, Durga and Parvati. In a large view the dichotomy development of Kali and Tara will be the central point of this investigation, but Durga and Parvati will also be mentioned in an elaborate way.

It will be important to get a connection to the worship of a goddess, allowing the reader to see how specific cults are worshipped in everyday life. There will be the attempt to demonstrate the range and irreducible complexity of feminine cults in Indian tradition, because there is a need to fix older and current researches on goddesses from different regional traditions in a quite valuable way. In order to ensure this development of specific goddesses, we need to focus the attention on the appearance of particular female cults.

There is a need to work with some written sources to investigate the depiction of such cults. That means the examination of several ancient Indian passages and also the delineation of elected sculptures. It needs to be clarified that this kind of operation is the only way to get countable results. But it might be difficult to find 'early' images of such goddesses as Kali and Tara in order to get a chronological overview. The establishment of a specific cult is linked with a system of some kind of a special myth building phenomenon. We must remember that we are working with legendary cults, text passages, (maybe failed) translations, images, sculptures and modern interpretations to get a survey of an ancient lifetime. In this extraordinary case it is important to understand a myth as an essential component of our (past) communication.