A thousand years after the Buddha's nirvana, Buddhists finally acquired a goddess of (almost) equal stature to the Buddha. Before this, the only goddess who was very prominent in Buddhist literature was Shri or the Goddess of fortune, clearly included within the Buddhist iconography by the lay people.

However, a 1,000 years later, the need for a woman to be part of the Buddhist pantheon was felt greatly, and so emerged Tara.