Tara - The Goddess as Guide and Protector, or Who Saves

In Hinduism, the goddess Tara  meaning "star", is the second of the Dasa (ten) Mahavidyas or "Great Wisdom [goddesses]", Tantric manifestations of Mahadevi, Kali, or Parvati. As the star is seen as a beautiful but perpetually self-combusting thing, so Tara is perceived at core as the absolute, unquenchable hunger that propels all life.

The oral tradition gives an origin to the goddess Tara. The legend begins with the churning of the ocean between the Devas and Asuras. Lord Shiva drank the poison (Halahala) that was created from the churning of the ocean (in the process turning his throat blue and earning him the epithet Nilakantha), thus saving the world from destruction, but fell unconscious under its powerful effect. Tara Ma appeared and took Shiva on her lap. She suckled him, the milk from her breasts counteracting the poison, and he recovered. This story is reminiscent of the one in which Shiva stops the rampaging Kali by becoming an infant. Seeing the child, Kali's maternal instinct comes to the fore and when she was feeding him her breast milk Shiva sucked her rage out while sucking the milk. In both cases, Shiva assumes the position of an infant vis-à-vis the Goddess. Mainly Tara is a form of Durga or Parvati. As Per Shakti Mahabhagwat, She is the one who created 1st Seed from which the entire universe took birth in the form of Lord Vishnu. Since he was Non manifested divinity so next Mahavidya expanded him so that manifested divinity Lord Brahma took birth from him.

Kali and Tara are similar in appearance. They both are described as standing upon a supine Shiva in an inert or corpse-like form. However, while Kali is described as black, Tara is described as blue. Both wear minimal clothing, however Tara wears a tiger-skin skirt, while Kali wears only a girdle of severed human arms. Both wear a necklace of severed human heads and the previously mentioned girdle of arms. Both have a lolling tongue, and blood oozes from their mouths. Their appearances are so strikingly similar that it is easy to mistake one for the other. Indeed, they are often said to be manifestations of each other; for example, in their thousand-name hymns they share many epithets as well as having each other's names. Tara, for example, is called Kalika, Ugra-kali, Mahakali, and Bhadra-kali. Tara is said to be more approachable to the devotee (Bhakta) or Tantrika because of her maternal instincts; however a large population of Bengali Hindus approach Kali herself as "Ma" or "mother".

Like Kali, furthermore, Tara in her Hindu context enjoys blood. In her hymn of a hundred names from the Mundamala-tantra, she is called "She Who Likes Blood", "She Who Is Smeared with Blood" and "She Who Enjoys Blood Sacrifice". The Tara-tantra describes Tara's delight in both animal and human blood but says that the latter is more pleasing to her. The blood of devotees is to be taken from specified parts of the body, such as the forehead, hands, breasts, head, or area between the eyebrows; some of these areas may correspond to the different chakras, spiritual centers within the body.

Tara can be distinguished visually from Kali primarily via her implements. Four armed, she carries a sacrificial sword, a severed head or skull cup, a lotus and scissors. Kali never holds a lotus or a pair of scissors.

Tara Yantra

Tara Mantra

Green Tara Mantra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_(Devi)

Kali -the goddess of the death and enlightenment

Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism Her counterpart is male with the name Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, "Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love."

It is partly correct to say Kali is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds.

Of all the forms of Devi, She is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva the destroyer. They are the destroyers of unreality. The ego sees Mother Kali and trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. A person who is attached to his or her ego will not be receptive to Mother Kali and she will appear in a fearsome form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children.

Ma Kali wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of dismembered arms because the ego arises out of identification with the body. In truth we are beings of spirit and not flesh. So liberation can only proceed when our attachment to the body ends. Thus the garland and skirt are trophies worn by Her to symbolize having liberated Her children from attachment to the limited body. She holds a sword and a freshly severed head dripping blood. As the story goes, this represents a great battle in which she destroyed the demon Raktabija. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum unmanifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. She is depicted as standing on Shiva who lays beneath Her with white skin (in contrast to Her black or sometimes dark blue skin). He has a blissful detached look. Shiva represents pure formless awareness sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while She represents "form" eternally supported by the substratum of pure awareness.

By not understanding the story behind Mother Kali it is easy to misinterpret Her iconography. In the same way one could say that Christianity is a religion of death, destruction and cannibalism in which the practitioners drink the blood of Jesus and eat his flesh. Of course, we know this is not the proper understanding of the communion ritual.

Attaching the idea of sexuality to Mother Kali has no basis in Her at all. There is nothing that associates Her with sexuality in the Hindu stories. In fact it is just the opposite. She is one of the few Goddesses who is celibate practicing austerity and renunciation!

The notion that She is the goddess of death, sex and violence is simply utter nonsense. When we study the life of the great saint Ramakrishna or the great poet saint Ramprasad (both famous Kali worshippers), or listen to the traditional Hindu devotional songs to Kali, there is no hint of this death-sex-violence notion.
Kali is the goddess of enlightenment or liberation.

Yantra

Mantra

Kali Maa Jaap Mantra