Skt., tara: Star
Tara is best known today as the Bodhisattva of compassion in nearly all Buddhist schools, where she is known under twenty-two aspects of which the Green Tara and White Tara are the most popular.
She also represents, however, a much older and larger concept of female divinity. As grandmaster Mircea Eliade has shown, she is the ancient and almost archetypal pre-Aryan Great Mother of Aboriginal India, corresponding to the Great Goddesses of the Middle East who ruled over all aspects of life from conception until death. As such, her domain is not only compassion and wisdom as is the case in Buddhism, but all of nature and the universe: fertility, sexuality and death. [Eliade. Yoga]
The fact that Tara is venerated by almost all Indian religious systems and schools (Jaina, Buddhism, Shakta, Tantra) and that her name has become a title of honor for other goddesses as well, simply testifies to this.
In her role as a Mahavidya, Tara appears with a shining blue body standing in the midst of a funeral fire; yet her belly is pregnant with the potential of endless creation and re-creation.
As the Great Goddess Arya-Tara, she is known by 108 names [see Willson, In Praise of Tara]. In the Kalika Purana, she is characterized as simply one of 75 yoginis, and in the Niruttara Tantra of the Kula school, Tara is the name given to a girl/woman of fifteen who takes an active part in ritual sexuality.