Green Tara
Green Tara (Skt. Śyāmatārā; Tib. Drol Jang; Wyl. sgrol ljang) — the main form of Tara and source of all her other manifestations.
Source
Śyāmatārā. (T. Sgrol ljang). In Sanskrit, “Dark Tārā”; in Tibetan “Green Tārā”; according to a widely held Tibetan myth, the goddess who consorted with a monkey (an emanation of Avalokiteśvara) and gave birth to the Tibetan people.
Later, she took the form of the princess Bhṛkutī, Nepalese wife of King Srong Btsan Sgam Po.
After Avalokiteśvara, Śyāmatārā is perhaps the most widely worshipped Buddhist deity in Tibet and the focus of the nonsectarian Tārā cult.
The Namas Tāre Ekaviṃśatistotra (“Twenty-One Praises of Tārā”) is one of the most widely known prayers in Tibet, and her Mantra, oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāha, is second in popularity only to OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪM, Avalokiteśvara’s mantra.
Each Tibetan sect has its own tantric rituals (Sādhana) and ritual propitiations (Vidhi) for Green Tārā, who is considered particularly helpful to those building monasteries and other religious structures, and to those starting business ventures.
Green Tārā is iconographically represented as sitting in Lalitāsana with her left leg bent and resting on her lotus seat, her right leg pendant, with the knee slightly raised, the foot resting on a second smaller lotus.
Atiśa Dīpaṃkaraśrījñāna, an Indian Buddhist monk and scholar revered by Tibetan Buddhists as a leading teacher in the later dissemination (Phyi Dar) of Buddhism in Tibet, was a devotee of Green Tārā,
and the temple commemorating his principal residence during his later years in central Tibet, in Snye thang (Nyethang), is the Sgrol ma lha khang (Drolma Lhakang) “Tārā Temple,” which is widely believed by Tibetans to have a statue of Śyāmatārā that can speak.
Source
The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism by Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
