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White Manjushri and White Tara are identical in body posture but not in what they hold. Manjushri has the two attributes of a book on top of an utpala flower held in the left hand. White Tara simply holds a white lotus in the left hand. Of the two common forms of White Tara, with one face and two hands, the more famous of the two has seven eyes on the body: three on the face, two on the palms of the hands, two on the soles of the feet. The Atisha form of White Tara only has the standard two eyes (not on the hands and feet). Note how the face of the male Manjushri figure has a more square face with a flat horizontal hairline. The female figure of Tara has an oval face almost egg-shaped. In Himalayan art, observing the shape of the face is the quickest way to identify male and female figures especially for art created after the 16th century.

Although White Manjushri, who is classified by function as a wisdom deity (see outline), or wisdom producing deity, and White Tara, classified as a long-life deity (see outline), are essentially unrelated except for both belonging to the Kriya classification of Tantra (see outline) - a system of classifying all Buddhist Tantras into four levels based on complexity: [1] Kriya, [2] Charya, [3] Yoga and [4] Anuttarayoga.