MAA TARA OF TARAPITH ( WEST BENGAL )
Tarapith is a Hindu temple town near Rampurhat in Birbhum district of the Indian state of West Bengal, known for its Tantric temple and its adjoining cremation (Maha Shashan) grounds where sādhanā (tantric rituals) are performed.
The Tantric Hindu temple is dedicated to the goddess Tara, a fearsome Tantric aspect of the Devi, the chief temples of Shaktism. Tarapith derives its name from its association as the most important centre of Tara worship and her cult.
Tarapith is also famous for Sadhak Bamakhepa, known as the avadhuta or "mad saint", who worshipped in the temple and resided in the cremation grounds as a mendicant and practised and perfected yoga and the tantric arts under the tutelage of another famous saint, Kailashpathi Baba. Bamakhepa dedicated his entire life to the worship of Tara Maa. His ashram is also located in bank of Dwaraka river and close to the Tara temple.
The temple and Deity Tara Maa is widely known, and Tarapith is reputed to be a very powerful center of goddess worship. The hymns sung there, the powers of the nearby tank, and the inhabitants and rituals of the adjacent cremation ground combine to give a good picture of Tara worship.
There are two mythical traditions that tell of the origin of the Tarapith temple. The first is the story about the sage Vasistha. The second concerns the well-known story of the dismemberment of Sati's corpse and the establishment of the s'akta pithas ("seats of sakti." places sacred to goddesses) throughout India.
Wherever a piece of her body fell, a center of goddess worship was established. According to the Tarapith myth, Sati's third, or spiritual, eye fell to earth at the place where the temple is now located. It was this sacred pith a that the Buddha saw with his mystical vision and to which he directed Vasistha. These two mythical traditions, then, combine to associate the temple with the Satl myth, and hence an all-India goddess network, and with left-handed tantric worship brought from the north, the source of Buddhist Tara worship.
Here is where the Bengali saint Bamakhepa (or Vamakhepa in Sanskrit) (1843-1911) lived and undertook his spiritual exercises for several decades prior to his death. Indeed, he behaved like a lunatic, which is often said to be one of the marks of a saint. Legend says that, after Bamakhepa had been meditating on Tara for a long time in the cremation ground, surrounded by corpses, funeral pyres, and jackals,Tara appeared to him in a burst of flames in her dreadful form.
Maa Tara's appearance and habits initially seem to be almost totally terrifying and fearsome, she has a gentler side. She is a savior who takes special care of her devotees, and in this respect she reflects the personality of the gentle Tara Maa.
