Relief fragment of Mara in Gandhara style, found in Swat Valley – phorograph by Under the Bo in Wikipedia “Mara” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
(12) MARA
Although Mara has origins in Hindu mythology – “He is Yama’s fearsome persona and all beings associated with him, darkness and death, become forces of Mara – he takes his true shape as a “malicious force” in the Buddhist counterpart of the Temptation of Christ.
Indeed, I prefer the Buddhist version of the Temptation under the Bo Tree. The Temptation of Christ worked best in the more effective brief version of it in the Gospel of Mark but otherwise can come across as a dry rabbinical debate. In the Temptation of Buddha, Mara cuts to the chase with the more elemental forces of s€x and violence – something echoed in the version of the Temptation of Christ in the the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.
“In the story of the Awakening of Prince Siddhartha, Mara appears as a powerful deva trying to seduce him with his celestial army and a vision of beautiful maidens…who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara’s daughters”.
His daughters are hot, though.
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