From Bauddha Deśa to Śākta Pīṭha: Re/Locating the Hindu Goddess Tārā

The incorporation of the goddess Tara into the Hindu pantheon appears to have begun around the turn of the first millennium, a couple of centuries after her first mentions in Buddhist sources. The earliest Hindu texts concerned with Tara tend to acknowledge this through a narrative wherein the Vedic sage Vasistha must travel to 'Greater China' to learn from the Buddha how to propitiate the goddess properly through the violation of brahmanical purity codes for which Indian tantric traditions are infamous. Over time her 'foreign' associations faded, narratives linking Tara to sites in Assam and Bengal became more prominent, and her worship drew closer to regional Hindu orthopraxy. This essay tracks the latter stages of that process especially through a reading of early modern ritual manuals in Sanskrit before considering a more recent revival of interest in the Hindu Tara's Buddhist connections as shown in Bengali sources and fieldwork.