Candrajosa Sita Tara This Tara of the "white moon brightness" is a representative of that sort of semi-divine personage of which the two princesses, Wen Ching and Bribsun, were believed to be incarnations. There are 21 Taras of the earth, the moon, the wind, and the elements. As the incarnations of the consort of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara they are associated by the Tibetans with mercy and charity. These figures would be approached by worshippers using special turquoise rosaries repeating the seemingly non-sensical mantra, "Aum! Tare tut-tare ture svaha!"       The figure shares a distinctive characteristic with many other Buddhist deities in the strangeness of proportion. Eyes on the forehead or in the palms of the hand are less surprising than the transitions in the anatomy of the body. Though fluidly treated, the stylized garments and hands seem to follow proper proportional relationships until the eye of the observer travels upward on the figure. Step by step the anatomical structures are correct, but they do not agree with each other. There is a progression in size. The waist is exceedingly small and the shoulders, in comparison, extremely broad for a female figure. However narrow the neck, the head seems to belong more to the shoulders than the shoulders do to the waist. Here is an effect in sculpture working as the reversed lines of perspective do in the paintings. Things get larger as they move away and approach the face of the deity. This strangeness vanishes as the eye follows the flow of the figure downward again, seemingly to adjust the proportions of the body to the true scope of the other-worldly face. When, after viewing these flowers, jewels, and ribbons, the Tibetan felt that the figure was correctly formed, he knew he had finished the work that the artist had left open for him to complete. Next
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