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Source Description
This Buddhist "thangka" (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.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
39277
label
Green Tara
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
citationUrl
pageCount
8
Source metadata
id
39277
sourceUrl
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Green Tara
description
This Buddhist "thangka" (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.
provenance
Eleanor Olsen; purchased by Alice Heeramaneck, New Haven, 1967; purchased by John and Berthe Ford, Baltimore, January 1984.
date
1160s-1180s
citationUrl
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
paintings
tangkas
tankas
thangkas
thankas
imageCount
8
pageCount
8
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
121.9
height
80
dimensionsRaw
H: 48 x W: 31 1/2 in. (121.92 x 80.01 cm); Framed H: 74 1/4 x W: 41 5/8 x D: 1 1/2 in. (188.6 x 105.73 x 3.81 cm)
style
Pala
Source extras
cul
Buddhist
med
tempera on cloth
creator_ids
6868
collection_ids
INT
exhibition_ids
2097
2071
3159
Page inventory
seq
1
type
photo
mediaId
343e9ec9aaf4a920
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
2
type
photo
mediaId
2de8aae0bc9703ab
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
3
type
photo
mediaId
9d916bcc43dbdad7
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
4
type
photo
mediaId
610727701efb9c58
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
5
type
photo
mediaId
41a2c9a5b40ec98d
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
6
type
photo
mediaId
6a9ba965d6252c40
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
7
type
photo
mediaId
eb2a383716299b35
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no
seq
8
type
photo
mediaId
247ce2204ede2f6b
hasOcr
no
hasDescription
no