M?RA

M?ra, whose name literally means "death" or "maker of death," is the embodiment of lust, greed, false views, delusion, and illusion. He is a virtually ubiquitous presence in Buddhist texts from the earliest accounts of the Buddha's enlightenment on. M?ra stands as an active antagonist of the Buddha and his followers, as well as a powerful metaphor. Paradigmatically, M?ra attempts to stop the Buddha in his quest for enlightenment.

In one of the earliest accounts of M?ra's treachery, in the Sutta Nip?ta (425–449), M?ra approaches the about-to-be enlightened Buddha and attempts to convince him to abandon his efforts and to adopt the more conventional Brahmanical religious life, the life of sacrifice and good karma. The Buddha rejects this suggestion, and rebukes M?ra and his minions. In later accounts of this episode found in the Mah?vastu (Great Story), Lalitavistara, Nid?na-kath? (Story of Causation), and the Buddhacarita (Acts of the Buddha), M?ra sends his various armies, including his own daughters, to frighten and tempt the Buddha as he sits in meditation; all such efforts of course fail. Finally, M?ra himself comes to the Buddha and calls into question his right to sit on the bodhima??a, the place of enlightenment, claiming that it is he, and not the Buddha, who is the rightful occupant of that position (due to his own past good karmic deeds). The Buddha then reaches out his hand and calls the earth goddess, Bh?dev?, to bear witness to his past good deeds; the earth quakes, the goddess appears, and M?ra and his armies flee. This episode, known as the M?ravijaya, or "defeat of M?ra," became one of the most common modes of representing the Buddha in many parts of the Buddhist world, conveying as it does his defeat of the forces of temptation, lust, greed, avarice, torpor and sloth, and, ultimately, death itself. M?ra also figures in the postenlightenment of the Buddha, when he deludes ?nanda at the moment when the Buddha's disciple is about to entreat the Buddha to remain on earth, preventing ?nanda from requesting that the Buddha stay until the end of the eon to teach. M?ra then reminds the Buddha that he had promised to depart once the dharma and sa?gha were established, and so the Buddha agrees that this will be his final life.

M?ra becomes a ubiquitous presence in Buddhist texts and iconography, standing as he does as the embodiment of t????, the grasping that fundamentally leads to further rebirth and, thus, further suffering. In Southeast Asia, it is the saint Upagupta who defeats M?ra, binding him with his own snares and converting him to Buddhism. In the Pure Land text, the Bhai?ajyaguruvaid?ryaprabh?r?ja-s?tra (S?tra of the Royal Lapis Healing Buddha), the "healing Buddha" vows to free all beings caught by M?ra's "heretical entrapments" and instill in them the correct views.

See also:Buddha, Life of the; Divinities; Evil

Bibliography

Boyd, James W. Satan and M?ra: Christian and Buddhist Symbols. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1975.

Ling, Trevor O. Buddhism and the Mythology of Evil: A Study in Therav?da Buddhism. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962.

Jacob N. Kinnard