Mara the Buddhist Demon

Mara the Buddhist Demon

Known as the “Prince of Darkness”, “Tempter”, “Lord of Death” or “Devil”, Mara works his way through Buddhist scriptures, sowing chaos and bad karma. This god is determined to hinder enlightenment and, thanks to his unlimited influence on the lives and hearts of men, he is very successful in achieving his goal.

If you are a fan of dark characters, Buddhist culture, or allegories of death, welcome to Skull Faction! You’ll understand, today we’ll see together what this character of the Buddhist culture represents, who he is, and what to learn about him. 👹

Let’s start without further ado!

Who is the demon Mara?

Mara is a demonic god who plagues Kāmadhātu, the “realm of desire” in Buddhist cosmography. He attempts to corrupt the inhabitants of Kāmadhātu, including animals, humans and demigods, by tempting them with desire and instilling fear.

Many supernatural creatures populate Buddhist literature, but among them, Mara is unique. He is one of the first non-human beings to appear in Buddhist scriptures. He is a demon, sometimes called the Lord of Death, who plays a role in many stories of the Buddha and his monks.

Mara is best known for his role in the Buddha’s historical enlightenment. This story has been mythologized as a great battle with Mara, whose name means “destruction” and who represents the passions that trick and deceive us.

Demon mara

Physical Description of Mara

Early followers of Buddhism believed that Mara had both a metaphorical and literal existence, which allowed him to take on a physical form in Kāmadhātu. Ancient drawings show Mara as a creature with a fat body, blue-green skin, and red when angry. Like most wrathful gods in Indian culture, he usually has three eyes and may have six arms. A crown of human skulls surrounds his head, and he is often seen riding an elephant or in the company of snakes. 🐍

Most contemporary Buddhists believe that Mara has only a metaphorical existence. Although he does not take physical form, he is nonetheless real and must be fought.

Mara’s Powers

Mara’s greatest power is his influence on the other inhabitants of the realm of desire. Not only can he summon other demons whenever he wants, but he can also turn men and women into tools. With clever lies and cunning truths, he manages to fill hearts with greed, lust, anger, jealousy, confusion, fear, and depression. 😵

Mara can also disguise himself by taking the form of other people. He can appear as someone you hate, love, fear, or trust, and thus twist your mind with false messages delivered by a friend or foe… All of Mara’s deviance is intended to inspire the people of Kāmadhātu to accumulate bad karma, so that they cannot break their karmic cycle and escape the realm of desire, where they exist under the shadow of his influence.

Mara fresco

Mara’s family

Mara’s daughters, each representing an undesirable emotion, are his most powerful allies. He uses these beautiful daughters as weapons to sow negative feelings in the people of Kāmadhātu and induce them to accumulate bad karma. 🔮

Different texts attribute different numbers of daughters to the Prince of Darkness. Most commonly, he has three daughters – Tanhā (envy), Arati (dislike, displeasure) and Raga (attachment, desire, greed, passion).

In other texts, he has ten daughters, sometimes called the ten main sins. These are:

  • Sakkaya-ditthi (pride, vanity)
  • Vicikiccha (skepticism, doubt)
  • Silabbata Paramasa (devotion to bad rituals)
  • Kama-raga (sensuality, desire)
  • Patigha (ill will)
  • Rupa-raga (attachment to the realm of form)
  • Arupa-raga (attachment to the formless realm)
  • Mana (superiority)
  • Uddhacca (restlessness, unrest)
  • Avija (ignorance)

He uses them according to the person he needs to manipulate, and therefore according to the qualities of each.

Mara Demon and Buddha

Origin of the Buddhist Demon

Neither the concept of Mara nor its name are Buddhist inventions. Before Buddhism, Hindu texts from the Vedic period contained a god with the same name, who represented both sexuality and death. Even earlier Hindu texts contain numerous yakshas, nature spirits who resemble Mara in their powers, habits, and purposes. 🙏

It is clear from early Buddhist texts that Mara has played a role in the Buddhist tradition since its inception. It appears in some of the earliest scriptures, written about a century after Buddha’s death, that Buddha himself speaks of Mara to his disciples.

Mythological Stories

Mara is an important figure in Buddhist scripture, with two sections of the scripture, the Mara-Samyutta and the Bhikkhuni-Samyutta devoted to recording his exploits. Almost all Buddhists are familiar with the most infamous attack of the “Tempter”, which he launched against Siddhartha Guatama when the sage was on the verge of attaining enlightenment. Here is the famous story:

Sensing that Siddhartha would soon break the shackles of the desire realm and obtain pure, limitless knowledge, which could be used to help others attain enlightenment, Mara set out to disrupt Siddhartha’s meditation. He found the future Buddha sitting under the Bhodi tree, almost starving but filled with glorious inner peace. 🙏

Of course, this would not have been enough. The Tempter immediately began to fill Siddhartha’s ears with whispers of the great kingdom he could establish, to glorify and improve humanity. Siddhartha recognized that these whispers were empty and ignored them. Then Mara rebuked Buddha for abandoning the duties of his religion, his social class and even his position as a father and husband. Buddha also ignored these remarks.

Seeing that his own wiles were no match for Siddhartha’s inner focus, Mara decided to call upon his allies. He summoned an army of terrible demons, who fired a volley of arrows at the resting Siddhartha. The man did not flinch, however, when the arrows darted towards him, and just before they struck, the arrows turned into flowers and spread around him. 🌸 Buddha then reached out to the earth for help, and a flood washed away the demonic horde.

The Evil One was now at the end of his rope. He called his own daughters, Tanhā, Arati, and Raga, to help him loosen Siddhartha’s grip on enlightenment. The girls danced before Siddhartha and persuaded him, with all their sensual charms, to return to the realm of desire. Siddhartha, however, was not affected.

Mara sent his daughters away and gave Siddhartha one last stab, this time resorting to his own genius of corruption and temptation. He mocked Siddhartha, telling him that his attempts to attain enlightenment were all in vain, since no one was there to witness the achievement. In response, Siddhartha placed a hand on the earth, proclaiming that the earth itself would be his witness. The earth shook in response, and the Prince of Darkness flew away in rage, knowing that he had been defeated.

Mara myth

Explanation of the Mara Myth

There may never have been an angry six-armed demon riding an elephant through the peaceful Indian countryside and leaving bad karma in its wake, but that doesn’t mean that Mara doesn’t exist.

Many modern Buddhists have come to understand Mara as a psychological phenomenon. Mara is a conglomeration of all the distractions that Buddhists must overcome in order to build good karma and attain enlightenment. Indeed, when you try to immerse yourself in a meditative state, you may feel like you are fighting a swarm of demons, or a demon god, along the way. 👊

Mara has also been interpreted as a metaphor for samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth that Buddhists try to escape. Mara is considered a god of desire and sensuality as well as a god of death. He creates and destroys life over and over again, creating samsara. When the Buddha has defeated Mara and when he commands his followers to oppose Mara, he may actually be calling them to escape from samsara.

Deeply rooted cultural customs may have caused early Buddhists to make Mara appear in physical form, for it was easier for them to rationalize Mara’s power as the power of a creeping god than as a psychological phenomenon. The construction of gods was more familiar than that of the human psyche.

Mara drawing

Buddha Triumphant of Mara

The Buddha sought answers to the problems of suffering and the continuous cycle of birth, death and rebirth that he witnessed all around him. He rejected the path of total self-denial (asceticism), and also rejected the comforts and indulgences of his previous life as a prince. He decided to sit under the bodhi tree and meditate on these issues until the answer to these problems became clear. His revelation was called the Four Noble Truths, a summary of the cause of human suffering, and the possibility and path to enlightenment for all beings.

During his meditations, the Buddha was tempted by the demon Mara. Mara sent him his armies, various temptations, and finally a challenge that the Buddha had to face to defend his claim to enlightenment. The Buddha touched the earth, and called the earth to witness his accomplishment. 🌍 This “touching of the earth” is considered a meaningful gesture (mudra). This iconography of the Buddha has become very popular throughout Asia.

The Mara can also be understood not only as a figure of a story, but also as a representation of the inner temptations, especially and mainly the ego, that hinder the path to enlightenment. Therefore, overcoming the Mara is equivalent to overcoming oneself.

Buddha and Mara

Is Mara the Buddhist Satan?

Although there are obvious parallels between Mara and the devil or Satan of monotheistic religions, there are also many significant differences. 😈

Although both characters are associated with evil, it is important to understand that Buddhists understand “evil” differently than how it is understood in most other religions. Furthermore, Mara is a relatively minor character in Buddhist mythology compared to Satan. Satan is the lord of hell. Mara is the only lord of the highest Deva heaven of the Desire world of Triloka, which has an allegorical representation of reality adapted from Hinduism.

Another culture, another country, discover the story of the Japanese god of death : Shinigami. If this article on the god of death Maratta more, do not hesitate to leave a comment, that would please us greatly !

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