Sitatapatra

Her name is composed of sita ("white") and ātapatrā ("parasol" or "umbrella").The Wheel of Great Compassion by Lorne Ladner and Lama Zopa Rinpoche (Wisdom Publications, 2001) p. 28

There are several different forms of Sitatapatra including:

with one face and two arms; with three faces and six arms; with three faces and eight arms; with three faces and ten arms; with five faces and ten arms; and, with 1000 faces, 1000 arms and 1000 legs.{{cite web |url=https://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=354 |title=Buddhist Deity: Sitatapatra Main Page |author=Jeff Watt|author-link=Jeff Watt |date= February 2003 |website=Himalayan Art Resources |access-date=2018-09-22 }}

ཧཱུཾ་མ་མ་ཧཱུཾ་ནི་སྭཱཧཱ།

Hum ma ma hum ni svaha

The Śūraṅgama Mantra of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra is the most commonly practiced mantra invoking her.{{cn|date=October 2014}} According to Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, the "Great White Umbrella" is a sādhanā for healing illness, dispelling interferences and spirit possession, quelling disasters, and bringing auspiciousness. To do practice in full requires a kriyātantra abhiṣeka of Sitātapatrā for the Vajrayana practitioners. The dhāraṇī "ārya-tathāgatoṣṇīṣa-sitātapatrāparājita-mahāpratyaṅgirāparama-siddhā-nāma-dhāraṇī" (English: "The Noble Dhāraṇī of Sitātapatrā Born from the Tathāgata’s Uṣṇīṣa, Great Dispeller of Invincible Might and Supreme Accomplishment") is a common action tantra practice of Sitātapatrā.

Image:SitatapatraW2.jpg

Sitātapatrā is one of the most complex Vajrayana goddesses.The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs by Robert Beer (1999) p.23 According to Miranda Shaw in the Buddhist Goddesses of India, Sitātapatrā emerged from Buddha's uṣṇīṣa when he was in the Trāyastriṃśa heaven.{{cn|date=October 2014}} The Buddha announced her role to "cut asunder completely all malignant demons, to cut asunder all the spells of others...to turn aside all enemies and dangers and hatred." Sitātapatrā's benign and beautiful form belies her ferocity as she is a "fierce, terrifying goddess, garlanded by flames, a pulverizer of enemies and demons."{{cite book|last1=Shaw|first1=Miranda|title=Buddhist goddesses of India|date=2006|publisher=Princeton Univ. Press|location=Princeton [u.a.]|isbn=978-0691127583|page=[https://archive.org/details/buddhistgoddesse00shaw/page/290 290]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/buddhistgoddesse00shaw/page/290}}

In the Mahayana Sitatapatra Sutra, she is called Aparājita "Undefeatable, Unconquerable" and is also identified as a form of goddess Tārā.{{cn|date=September 2018}}

In other sutras, she is regarded as a female counterpart to Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Like him, Sitātapatrā manifests in many elaborate forms: having a thousand faces, arms and legs, or simply as a feminine deity of great beauty. Known foremost for her "white parasol" she is most frequently attributed with the "golden wheel". The auspiciousness of the turning of the dharma wheel is symbolic of Buddhism, both in its teachings and realizations.{{cn|date=September 2018}}

Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhist often recite her a Sino rendering of her Sanskrit title (Maha, meaning "great") Sitātapatrā (Ma Ha Tất Đát Đa Bát Đát Ra 摩訶悉怛多缽怛囉) as a protection mantra, often alongside a starting Om and then svaha but sometimes just the name by itself.

• List of bodhisattvas

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• [http://www.himalayanart.org/search/set.cfm?setID=354 Buddhist Deity: Sitatapatra] - at Himalayan Art Resources

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