GREEN TARA is one of the most benevolent and most compassionate deities in Vajrayana Buddhism. According to the story of Mother Tara, it said:

Many aeons ago, there was an aeon called the "Variety of Lights", and in a kingdom, there lived a princess by the name of Yeshe Dawa, which means "Wisdom Moon". At that time, a Buddha named Ngadra had been giving the teachings. When Yeshe Dawa heard about his teachings, she immediately developed a strong faith to the Buddha Ngadra, and started to practice the Dharma very hard; especially on the teachings of generating Bodhicitta (mind with compassion and devotion to all sentient beings without any exceptions).

Buddha Ngadra had countless Sravakas and Bodhisattvas disciples, and Yeshe Dawa worshipped them for tens and hundreds of millions of years.

Everyday, she filled 12 Pag-Tshed (unit of measurement in Tibetan equivalent to 500 arm spans) with high-costing offerings, such as jewels and clothes. After which, she immediately generated the Bodhicitta for the first time.

Her fellow-Dharma brothers, seeing that she had given up all worldly desires and had already achieved an excellent stage of the Dharma practice, praised her and told her to ask for Buddha’s blessing to grant her the male body in the next life. After listening to these words, she realized that chauvinism could never be removed from the mindset of the people; and yet, Yeshe Dawa knew that both males and females have the same capacity in achieving Buddhahood, so she made a vow: "I will achieve Buddhahood and will help all sentient beings in this female form. And before reaching enlightenment, I will maintain this female form for all my lifetimes."

Then, for hundreds of thousands and ten of millions of years, living in the king's palace, she had contemplated on meditative concentration. Having enjoyed the five sensual objects (forms, sounds, tastes, odor, and objects of touch) with skillful means, she attained the state of being non-born. With this, she had then accomplished the stage of meditative concentration, and so she was called “Liberator of all Sentient Beings.” Through the power of this concentrative meditation, she had liberated ten of millions and hundreds of thousands of beings from the worldly mindset every day during morning. She had made up her mind not to touch a morsel of food, until she had put all these beings upon the state of patience.

After she had succeeded, she also liberated the sentient beings in the evenings. Then she changed her former name into Tara. Since then, the Buddha Ngadra had predicted that for as long as she will have attained Buddhahood, her name will always be Goddess Tara.

Then, in the aeon called Bibuddha Numper Gaypa, she took a vow to protect beings of ten directions from suffering and harm in the presence of Buddha Donyo Drupa. Having entered into meditation, called “concentrative meditation of defeating entirely all obscurations and evils”; and for 95 aeons, she had placed tens of millions and hundreds of thousands of beings on a state of concentrative meditation everyday. Every evening, she defeated tens of millions of demons; therefore, she had been called "Tara the Liberator." Finally, she had conquered all obscurations and obtained good progress in the Dharma practice, and had gained the ultimate realization; thus, she became the GREEN TARA.

In the Root Tantric Doctrine that was related to Green Tara, it had been said that Buddha gives praise to this great Bodhisattva: “Tara is the protector of all sentient beings. She can guide all beings to the path of liberation, especially to free them from all sufferings, such as pain and fear. Tara is the gate-keeper who prevents beings from being reborn to the three lower realms. Those who can practice her texts during retreats would be guided to be reborn to the three higher realms.” Buddha uses these praises to the good deeds of Mother Tara, for she gives protection to all beings, and frees them from fears.

Another way of visualizing the Exalted Mother, GREEN TARA, is to picture Mother Tara as the emanation of the Goddess with Greatest Compassion Avaloketishwara (Tbt: Chenrizig). One time when Avaloketishwara used his clairvoyance to look into this world, he had noticed that all beings were suffering with endless pain due to greed, lust, and sheer stupidity. His compassion for them caused two teardrops to fall: the teardrop from his right eye became the Green Tara; and tear drop from his left eye became the White Tara.