Keywords
Tara
Materiality of Religion
Shaktism
Tantra
Spatial Analysis
Religious Change
India
How to Cite
Abstract
The Hindu Mahavidya Tara is the principal contradiction between her fierce, transgressive image and her benevolent, maternal image. This article explores how this paradox has been addressed by the material and physical structure of her sacred sites. It addresses the fundamental question: How do spatial relationships between the physical layout of various Tara shrines structurally mediate her dual identity? By comparing and contrasting four large shrines, including Tarapith (West Bengal), Tara Tarini (Odisha), Ugratara (Assam), and Tara Devi (Himachal Pradesh), this paper attempts to suggest that the crafting of sacred space is one of the central means of negotiating the identity of the goddess. The analysis shows that there are some different spatial strategies: compartmentalization in Tarapith, where the fierce power of the cremation ground is held in a strained negotiation with the ordered temple; localization at Ugratara, where fierceness is contained within an urban temple through aniconic worship and intense ritual; domestication at Tara Tarini through Puranic landscapes and contemporary infrastructure that eliminates liminality; and erasure at Tara Devi, where a sanitized mountain landscape introduces a singularly benign deity. This paper shows that the physical design of a shrine is not a passive setting but an active agent in creating, domesticating, and re-creating a deity to multiple publics of devotees.
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