Mantra · Buddhist practice
Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha
An invocation of Tārā as liberator and swift protector. The mantra’s syllables receive different explanations in traditional commentaries.
ཨོཾ་ཏཱ་རེ་ཏུཏྟཱ་རེ་ཏུ་རེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།
Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā
The mantra of Tārā, the bodhisattva of swift compassion — the one called on for protection, for obstacles, and for fear. She is said to have been born from a tear of Avalokiteśvara, and to have vowed to keep working in a woman's form.
Source: Tārā tantras; standard across Tibetan Buddhist schools
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ཨོཾ་ཏཱ་རེ་ཏུཏྟཱ་རེ་ཏུ་རེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།
Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā
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What the words say
Tāre, tuttāre and ture are vocatives built on her name, which itself carries the sense of crossing over or ferrying across. The three are read in commentary as liberation from suffering, from fear and from sickness, though the syllables work as much by sound as by grammar. Svāhā seals the mantra, as it does in Vedic offering.
Where it comes from
Tārā practice entered Tibet with the later spread of Buddhism and belongs to all four schools; Atiśa, the eleventh-century Bengali master, is particularly associated with bringing her devotion. The Twenty-One Praises to Tārā are recited alongside the mantra.
How it is practised
Counted on a mala. Green Tārā is the usual form addressed by this mantra, and it is recited at the start of journeys and in illness. More elaborate sādhanas require transmission; the mantra itself is widely recited without it.
References
- Praise to Tārā with Twenty-One Verses of Homage (Tārā-namaskāraika-viṃśati-stotra), Degé Kangyur, Toh 438
- Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tārā (University of California Press, 1973)
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