It remains to say a word of the numerous goddesses who play an important part in Tibetan Buddhism, as in Hindu Tantrism.  They are usually represented as the female counterparts or better halves of male deities, but some are self-sufficient.  The greatest of these goddesses is Tara.[1043] Though Lamaist theology describes her as the spouse of Avalokita she is not a single personality but a generic name applied to a whole class of female deities and, as in many other cases, no clear distinction is drawn between her attendants and the forms which she herself assumes.  Originally benevolent and depicted with the attributes of Lakshmi she is transformed by a turn of Tibetan imagination, with which the reader is now familiar, into various terrible shapes and is practically the same as the spouse of Siva, celebrated in the Tantras under countless names.  Twenty-one Taras are often enumerated in a list said to be well known even to the laity[1044] and there are others.  Among them are (a) the Green Tara, the commonest form in Tibet. (b) The White Tara, much worshipped by Mongols and supposed to be incarnate in the Tsar of Russia, (c) Bhrikuti, a dark blue, angry, frowning form, (d) Ushnishavijaya,[1045] a graceful and benevolent form known to the Japanese.  She is mentioned in the Horiuji palm-leaf manuscript which dates from at least 609 A.D. (e) Parnasavari, represented as wearing a girdle of leaves and also called Gandhari, Pisaci and Sarva-Savaranam Bhagavati.[1046] She is apparently the goddess of an aboriginal tribe in India. (f) Kurukulla, a goddess of riches, inhabiting caves.  She is said to have given great wealth to the fifth Grand Lama, and though she might be suspected of being a native deity was known in Nepal and India.[1047]

The Goddess Marici, often depicted with Tara, appears to be distinct and in one form is represented with a sow’s head and known as Vajravarahi.  As such she is incarnate in the abbesses of several monasteries, particularly Samding on lake Yamdok.[1048]

A notice of Tibetan Buddhism can hardly avoid referring to the use of praying wheels and the celebrated formula Om mani padme hum.  Though these are among the most conspicuous and ubiquitous features of Lamaism their origin is strangely obscure.[1049] Attempts to connect the praying wheel with the wheel of the law, the cakravartin and other uses of the wheel in Indian symbolism, are irrelevant, for the object to be explained is not really a wheel but a barrel, large or small, containing written prayers, or even a whole library.  Those who turn the barrel acquire all the merit arising from repeating the prayers or reading the books.  In Tibet this form of devotion is a national mania.  People carry small prayer wheels in their hands as they walk and place large ones in rivers to be turned by the current.  In China, Japan and Korea we find revolving libraries and occasional praying machines, though not of quite the same form as in Tibet,[1050]