Mara concept.mara (demon)

 Mara concept

Mara

   I thought of writing about Mara as the first article in the series of articles about Buddhist civilization. Who is this monster? Even the Buddhists do not have much understanding of the Mara concept. According to the majority of Buddhists, Mara means the god of death. But in other cultures, the god of death or the angel of death is depicted as a skeletal creature dressed in a black robe. But in the Buddhist philosophy, the Mara is a more powerful character. In the concept of Mara, the occurrence of death is also known as Mara. But the Mara that we are talking about today is not the name of this death. He is a person. A person is not a man.

   Here is the Mara of Buddha's vision...

   According to Buddhism, there are six heavens. They are in order of glory from the bottom to the top...the heavens above are mightier than the heavens below. These are located in order from the bottom up to the most powerful heaven. So the most powerful heaven in this Sakvala is the heaven called Paranirmitavasavarti. This is the sixth and the last heaven of this world. If you say how powerful this heaven is, the god of this Paranirmitavasavarti heaven is much more powerful than the gods in other heavens. No god in any other heaven can challenge this god in the heaven called Paranirmitavasavarti. So this god in heaven is second only to another powerful group called Brahma. I will mention the concepts of Sakvala, Brahma and Gods that I talked about in a blog post later. So, according to Buddhism, it is mentioned that the person called Mara belongs to this heaven called Paranirmitavasavarti. I could not find if this is a place that is clearly mentioned in Buddhism. But because it is mentioned in Buddhism that Mara's power surpasses that of other gods, he must surely come from the Paranirmitavasavarti heaven. Mara has a special power over any other Paranirmitavasavarti deity. Because Mara is the ruler of the world. Yes Mara is the person who controls this world we live in.  So how do you control the world? It is from our thoughts. If we maintain our thoughts in the way of existence or rebirth, we become slaves of Mara.

   But if we stop our thoughts or reach the point of Moksha, we will be freed from Mara. So Lord Buddha was freed from Mara because he set his mind to moksha. He opposed Mara Buddha because he shows us the way to be free from this mara. But according to Buddha's view, Buddha is greater than all beings not only in this Sakvala but in all infinite Sakvalas. So Mara could not defeat Buddha. Mara has three daughters named Thanha, Rathi and Ragha. So Mara sent these daughters to the Lord Buddha to defeat him. But it was not possible. The only thing that can defeat Mara is attaining Moksha. No one is free from Mara's influence. So Mara is such a powerful person. If the Lord Buddha had not appeared, there was no one in this world who could defeat Mara. There is no description that the group called Brahma defeated him. But the majority of the Brahms are freed from Mara.

   Mara has an army of ten people. It is for them that Dasmaras are the ten vices of man, according to Buddhist literature. This vice can be used to control people.

   Mara has a powerful weapon called Vajrayudha. This weapon called Vajrayudha is not only for Mara. This Vajrayudha is the main weapon of Shakra, the ruler of the two lower heavens out of the six heavens that I mentioned earlier. But Mara's Vajrayuda is stronger than Lord Shakra's Vajrayuda. Mara's vajrayudha is said to be so powerful that if it attacks the sea, the sea will dry up. If he attack the sky, it will not rain for seven years.

   This is how Maraya's Vajrayuda is mentioned.

   Now you can understand how powerful character Mara is in Buddha's philosophy.

   Finally, I want to say something. What I have said should not be confused with Buddha's teachings. Because the things I said are things I learned from books and sermons related to Buddhism. Actual facts may vary slightly. In no way am I promoting this religion. This is just for knowledge.