Who is Tara?  excerpted from: http://www.jeffsutherland.org/tara/index.html "Goddess of the Earth Goddess of the Heavens Complete and Perfect Buddha Goddess of Action Tara is any of a group of twenty-one female deities or symbolic figures used as supports during meditation, two of whom (the Green and White Taras) also figure in Buddhism at the popular level as the patron deities of Tibet and Mongolia respectively. [Blofeld, 1970] Tara is the most beloved of deities, particularly for the Tibetans. Legend has it that once, as person just like us, she has served countless Buddhas. And ages ago she took the Bodhisattva Vow, to work for the benefit of all beings until every one of us is enlightened. While this page is dedicated to her Tibetan form, as Mother Goddess she arises out of many times and places--Durga and Tara in India or Demeter, Artemis, and Isis in Rome who were later overshadowed by the Virgin Mary. Tara is quite well known to the West through Her Tibetan manifestations, but some are unaware of the important position She occupies in the Hindu tantrik pantheon. She is the second of the ten Mahavidyas. Erich Neumann, a former student of Carl Jung, discusses the highest form of the feminine archetype, the Goddess of Spiritual Transformation, and views Tara as the highest evolution of this universal aspect of consciousness. Radically defying the tradition of assuming only male rebirths after taking the Bodhisattva Vow, she made a second vow - to work for others forever in the form of a woman. At the turn of the second millennium, as the feminine archetype arises out of intense planetary need, Tara lives and works intimately in the world as a Bodhisattva. In contrast to most of the Buddhist Tutelary Dieties she is directly accessible to the uninitiated, a characteristic which contributes to her popularity. Her heart, devastated by the torture and killing of her disciples in Tibet, has followed the diaspora of Tibetan Lamas across the planet. As a result, she is very accessible to western students who practice her sadhana. "Among the Buddha's many human and divine disciples, there were four great celestial or angelic Bodhisattvas, Enlightenment Heroes, who are believed to have taken a special interest in Tibet and the Tibetans. These are the female Boddhisattva Tara, Lady of Miraculous Activities, and the usually male Bodhisattvas Lokeshvara, Lord of Compassion, Manjushri, Lord of Wisdom, and Vajrapani, Lord of Power. These Boddhisattvas are only in one sense disciples of the Buddha; in another sense they are themselves already perfect Buddhas. They became perfect Buddhas innumerable world-eons before our universe and vowed to manifest as disciples of all Buddhas in all world systems in order to mediate between those Buddhas and the human populations of those worlds." (Thurman, 1995) " excerpted from: http://www.jeffsutherland.org/tara/index.html

"The single face of the Chief Lady is the understanding of all events as a single knowledge. The green color of her body is power in all functions. Her two hands are the understanding of the two truths: her right hand the conventional truth, her left hand the absolute truth. Her right foot stretched out is the abandonment of all the defects of Mara; her left foot drawn back is the understanding of all qualities. Her adornment with all ornaments is the completion of the stocks of merit and knowledge.... Her right hand in the gift-bestowing gesture is the completion of the Perfection of Charity; her left hand in the protection gesture is the guarding of all beings from terror. Her holding the lotus flower is the giving of joy to all beings. Her being sixteen years of age is the ability to accomplish the aims of all beings. Her throne of the orb of the moon is the possession of Wisdom, and her throne of a varicolored lotus is the possession of an essence of Compassion." Nargarjuna (Beyer, 1978, pp. 80-81.)

THE NAME OF TARA -- "The name 'Tara' itself tells us much about her. Paali and Sanskrit dictionaries generally define the word taaraa as 'star' or 'planet' and it may be etymologically related to the English word 'star'. According to the Pali Text Society Dictionary, it is equivalent to the Latin astrum.[2] In all Sanskrit-based modern Indian languages taaraa is still the word for 'star'. A derivative of the same word means 'the pupil of the eye', suggesting the idea of a focal point, which further gives us the idea of Taaraa being in some manner a very concentrated essence. However, the more popular approach in Buddhism is to interpret Taaraa's name as coming from the causative form of the verb t.'r 'to cross', 'to traverse' or 'to escape'. So we reach the idea of 'she who ferries across', 'she who saves' or 'a saviouress'. Taaraa herself is supposed to have sung at one time:   When only my names are recollected, I always protect all beings, I, O Saviour, shall ferry them across the great flood of their manifold fears. Therefore the great Seers sing of me in the world under the name of Taaraa. [3] The translation of Taaraa's name into Tibetan is Dölma (sgrol-ma) or She who saves."  - Tara: Her Origins and Development by Dharmachari Purna http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol2/tara_origins_a_development.html