A female form of *Kannon 観音 who appears as the mother of the Kannon section (Kannon'in 観音院 or Rengebuin 蓮華部院) of the *Taizōkai mandara 胎蔵界曼荼羅. One of the Thirty-three Kannon Sanjūsan Kannon 三十三観音. It is recorded that Xuanzhuang (Jp: Genjō 玄奘, 600/2-664) saw the image of Tara Bosatsu in India, and several texts devoted solely to her were translated from the end of Tang and during the Song dynasties. She is mentioned in the Fukūkenjaku shinpen shingongyō 不空羂索神変真言経. She appeared in art in India as an attendant of Kannon in the Gupta period; was shown commonly as a single deity in sculpture of the Pala period; is shown in relief sculptures in Java in the 8th-9th century; was and is, in Tibet, a female alternate of Kannon; and appeared in her Indian/Tibetan form in paintings at Dunhuang (Jp: Tonkō 敦煌).
However, she appears not to have had an independent cult in Japan, since there are no independent images. In the Taizōkai mandara, she holds a lotus and is clothed from her neck to her ankles in robes that reveal nothing of her physique: an alteration from her Indian representation may have occurred in China.