So it is with you, O Māra.
By assaulting the Tathāgata,
You generate much demerit.
Evil One (pāpima), do you imagine that your evil (pāpa) will not ripen?
Doing thus, you store up evil
Which will last long, O End-Maker!
Māra, shun the Enlightened One,
Play no more your tricks on bhikkhus!”
So the bhikkhu chastened Māra
In the Bhesakaḷa thicket
Whereupon the sombre spirit (yakkha)
Disappeared right then and there.709
The story of Māra Dūsi illustrates an important concept: in Buddhism there is no irredeemable or absolute evil. This Māra was, if anything, more hurtful and wicked than the Māra of the Buddha Gotama’s time. As a result of his actions he suffered immediate result of his kamma and was reborn in a terrible niraya world, but in spite of all this he went on to eventually become a fully awakened and liberated being as the Buddha’s disciple Moggallāna.
3:5:41 MĀRA’S ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERS III—DEVAS AND BRAHMĀS
Māra’s power extends over the entire kāmabhūmi (“plane of sense-desire”) and to some degree, even beyond that. In one recorded instance, he possessed the mind of a deva and caused him to utter a stanza in praise of seeking rebirth in the deva realm (SN 2:30). We have seen how the devas fled before Māra’s host at the time of the Buddha’s awakening. The Mahāsamaya Sutta (DN 20) records another occasion when a great host of devas assembled to pay respects to the Buddha, and this time the Buddha’s power thwarted Māra’s attack. After a very long list of all the various devas and other beings, the sutta concludes:
All the devas had come, with Inda and with Brahmā.
Māra’s army also came, now see Kaṅha’s(“the Black One’s”) folly.
“Come! Seize them! Capture them! Bind them with passion!
Surround them! Let no one escape!”
Thus did the great general exhort his dark army.!
Striking the ground with his hand, he made a frightful noise.
Like a storm in the rainy season, with thunder and lightning.
But then withdrew, enraged and powerless.
The All-Knowing One (i.e. the Buddha) saw and understood.
Then the Teacher warned his disciples:
“Know this bhikkhus, Māra’s army has come.”
Having heard, the disciples remained vigilant.
Those without passion cannot be moved by desire or by fear.
Winning every battle, glorious, beyond fear.
All beings rejoice at the victory of his disciples. (DN 20)
The commentary explains that the Buddha thwarted Māra’s assault by using his power so that the assembled devas neither saw nor heard Māra’s frightful manifestations (MN-a 20).
Māra’s primary dominion is the kāmabhūmi (“plane of sense-desire”) which includes the realms of humans and devas, but to some degree he also has power within the lower reaches of the rūpabhūmi (“plane of form”), the realm of the brahmā deities. We have already seen how Mahābrahmā fled together with the other devas in the face of Māra’s host (Jāt-nid 2). The Brahmanimantanika Sutta (MN 49) recounts a visit of the Buddha to the brahmāloka and Māra’s attempts to interfere with his teaching there. We shall postpone a more detailed consideration of this sutta until the chapter on the brahmā worlds, and at this time shall only look at what it tells us about Māra and the upper limits of his authority.
The brahmās are deities on a higher plane than the devas, and they are beyond sensual desire. This means that one of Māra’s principal inducements is useless there. Instead, he uses the defilements of false view (micchādiṭṭhi) and desire of being (bhavataṇhā) against them. The brahmās are divided into various levels which correspond to the levels of jhāna (meditative absorption), as we shall see in more detail later. Although it is said in one place that Māra’s domain is the whole of saṃsāra, (AN-a 8:29) the Brahmanimantanika Sutta gives good reason to suppose that he has no effective power beyond the brahmā worlds of the first jhāna level. The commentary states explicitly that Māra can possess the minds of brahmapārisajja brahmās but not that of higher level brahmās. The brahmapārisajja brahmās (“brahmā’s assembly”) are the lowest of three classes of first jhāna brahmās. However, Māra does seem to have an indirect influence on Baka the Mahābrahmā who is the principal protagonist of this sutta. The reason the Buddha decided to intervene is that Baka had fallen under the delusion that he is the supreme being, a delusion that is supported by lesser brahmās who are possessed by Māra directly. Māra is described as being angry that the Buddha is teaching there, and that thousands of brahmās are in danger of escaping his sway; they are said to be “in his hands.” Māra had followed the Buddha in invisible form (MN-a 49) and spoke only through the medium of brahmās under his possession, but of course this did not fool the Buddha, who called him to account.
The consciousness of brahmās is equivalent to that experienced in the four jhānas, states of deep meditative absorption. The various levels of the brahmā worlds are ranked according to their corresponding jhānas, and the jhānas are defined by the presence or absence of certain mental factors. It would be too long a digression to explain this fully here,710 but suffice it to say that vitakka-vicāra, usually translated as “applied and sustained thought” are present in first jhāna but absent in the higher jhānas. Baka lives in the brahmā world which corresponds to first jhāna,711 and so Māra is able to use discursive thought and argument to influence him, but not sensuality. We do not hear of Māra ever working his mischief in any higher brahmā realm. Those beings are beyond ordinary thought as well, so Māra has no useful weapon left to wield against them. Jhāna is said to “blindfold Māra,” (MN 25) by suppression of the hindrances one becomes temporarily removed from his power. This corresponds to the condition of the higher brahmās. They are beyond his immediate reach, but have not escaped his dominion absolutely because they are still subject to rebirth and falling into a lower state of being.712
3:5:42 OTHER EPISODES CONCERNING MĀRA
Māra sometimes assumes various disguises in his attempts to divert seekers from the path. In one instance he approached some young bhikkhus in the form of an elderly brahmin ascetic, “with his hair matted in a top-knot, wearing a cloak of cheetah hide, old, bent and wheezing, leaning on a staff.” He advised them to enjoy sensual pleasures while they were still young, but the bhikkhus resisted his blandishments and he departed “shaking his head, wagging his tongue and with a furrowed brow.” When told of the encounter, the Buddha pronounced that “this was no brahmin but Māra Pāpima come to make you blind” (vicakkhummāya i.e. “to confuse you.”) (SN 4:21)
Sūrambaṭṭha was the lay disciple called “foremost in unshakeable confidence” (AN 1: 255). Upon hearing the Buddha discourse on the Dhamma he attained to the state of a sotāpanna (first stage of awakening). Māra then paid him a clandestine visit:
Then Māra thought, “This one called Sūrambaṭṭha belongs to me, but today the Teacher got a hold of him. One who hears the Teacher has the path manifest for him. I must know whether he has escaped from my sphere or not.” So Māra assumed the form of the Buddha, together with the thirty-two marks, and bearing robe and bowl appeared at Sūrambaṭṭha’s door. Sūrambaṭṭha thought, “The Buddha has come back. Buddhas do not come for no reason, I wonder why he has returned?” He greeted the Buddha respectfully and asked him for the reason for his return visit. In the guise of the Buddha, Māra said, “Sūrambaṭṭha, in giving you a talk on Dhamma, I neglected one point. I had said that the five aggregates (khandā—constituents of body and mind) are all impermanent, suffering and without a self. But they are not all like that. There is one that is permanent, stable and eternal.”
But Sūrambaṭṭha thought, “This statement is very grave. Buddhas are never careless in their teaching. This is indeed Māra, the enemy of the Buddha,” and he said, “You are Māra!” The word
s of the noble disciple were like a hatchet blow, which Māra could not withstand. “Yes, I am Māra.” Sūrambaṭṭha declared, “Should a hundred thousand Māras come here, my faith in the Buddha would not be shaken.” He snapped his fingers at Māra and ordered, “Begone from my doorway.” Māra could not remain there, but disappeared straight away. (AN-a 1: 255)
Māra often feigns an interest in the well-being of his intended victims, as in the following episode:
The bhikkhu Godhika six times attained to sāmāyika cetovimutti (“temporary liberation of mind”) and six times fell away from that state because of an illness affecting his wind, bile and phlegm. Upon reaching the temporary liberation of mind a seventh time, he thought “Six times have I fallen away from this state. What if I were now to wield the knife?” (i.e. commit suicide).
Māra knew the mind of the bhikkhu and he thought, “This bhikkhu intends to wield the knife. One who wields the knife is indifferent to life. Having established insight (vipassana) they can attain arahantship. I must prevent him from doing so. He will not heed my words, so I shall have the Teacher stop him.”
Māra approached the Blessed One in disguise and spoke the following verses:
Great Hero, Great Wise One, glorious and powerful
You who have transcended all fear and enmity,
I bow down at your feet, Possessor of Vision.
Conqueror of death,
A disciple of the Great Hero wishes for death.
Forbid him, O Resplendent One!
How, O Blessed One, can a disciple devoted to your teaching,
A student who has not reached the goal, do this thing, O Famous One!
At that very moment, Godhika used the knife. The Buddha, knowing it was Māra who addressed him, spoke the following stanza:
So the wise do, who do not yearn for life.
Having torn up the root of craving, Godhika has attained final nibbāna.
Then the Buddha went with a company of bhikkhus to the place where Godhika lay dead. At that same moment, Māra was thinking, “Where has this elder’s rebirth consciousness established itself?” The Buddha pointed out to the monks a smoky dark shape searching about in all directions. “This, bhikkhus, is Māra Pāpima, seeking the consciousness of the clansman Godhika. But the consciousness of Godhika is not established anywhere, he has attained final nibbāna.”713
This sutta raises a number of important doctrinal issues. What, for instance, is meant by sāmāyika cetovimutti, “temporary liberation of mind”? The Saṃyutta Commentary defines it as “with momentarily repeated application (appitappitakkhaṇe) he is freed from obstructive states, and is intent on the object of a mundane attainment” (SN-a 4:23). The corresponding passage in the Dhammapada version (Dhp-a 4:11) specifically identifies it with jhāna. Whatever its exact nature, sāmāyika cetovimutti is clearly not arahatta (full awakening). This has a bearing on the problem of the bhikkhu’s suicide and the Buddha’s apparent approval of the act. It would take us too far from the theme of this book to consider this question in the depth it deserves, but suffice it to say that suicide is generally condemned in Theravāda Buddhism (Vin Pār 3). There are three similar cases of bhikkhus who “wielded the knife” mentioned in the suttas, Godhika, Vakkali (for whom Māra also searched in a dark and smoky form) (SN 22:87) and Channa (MN 144). None of the three was an arahant at the moment of “wielding the knife” but all three attained to arahatta in the moments before their demise. Since an arahant is not subject to rebirth, the negative kamma of self destruction is rendered null and void. The words of a modern Thai master of the forest tradition, Ajahn Maha Boowa, may be worth quoting here: “The story of Ven. Godhika should serve as quite some food for thought. Ven. Godhika went to practice meditation, made progress step by step, but then regressed. They say this happened six times. After the seventh time, he took a razor to slash his throat—he was so depressed—but then came to his senses, contemplated the Dhamma, and became an arahant at the last minute. That’s the story in brief. When he died, Māra’s hordes searched for his spirit. To put it simply, they stirred up a storm, but couldn’t tell where he had been reborn.”714
For our purposes, the most salient details come at the end of the story. Māra is unable to find, or seemingly to comprehend, what has become of one who has transcended his sphere of power completely. Māra is used to beings moving from realm to realm, still fettered by desire and delusion. When someone manages to break free of birth and death altogether he is completely baffled. It is also noteworthy that the bhikkhus perceive him only as a vague form described as “dark and smoky’ thrashing about in all directions. Compare this perception with the more usual one of devas manifesting in this realm; when they are seen at all by ordinary humans it is as a brilliant light (eg. DN 21).
On occasion, Māra delegates the making of mischief to lesser devas of his entourage:
Some women who were the companions of the pious Visakhā had taken to drinking liquor. On one occasion, they accompanied her to the vihāra to listen to the Buddha and sat themselves in the assembly hall after having drunk liquor. Then a deva of Māra’s company (mārakāyikā devatā) thought, “I will possess the bodies of these women and cause them to misbehave in front of the samaṇa Gotama.” Thereupon, some of the women clapped their hands and laughed in front of the Buddha, while others got up and began to dance. The Buddha knew what was going on and he thought, “I shall not allow the devas of Māra to get an opportunity here.” To frighten the women, the Buddha caused a ray to issue forth from his eyebrows which caused a great darkness. The women were overcome with a fear of death and the liquor in their bellies dried up. The Buddha then ascended to the top of Mount Sineru and caused a ray brighter than the sun or moon to issue forth. He then admonished the women for their heedlessness which allowed one of Māra’s devas to possess them. (Dhp-a 11:1)
The Kathavatthu records a dispute over whether it were possible for arahants to have an involuntary discharge of semen. The Theravāda denied this was possible, but two other early schools held that it was. Their position was that while the arahant is free of lust, a discharge may still occur because devas of Māra’s company convey the semen to them. The Theravāda reply was to ask where the semen comes from, because arahants produce none and devas have none (Kv 2:1).
Māra is mentioned twice in the Jātakas. In Jātaka 40 he attempts to starve a Paccekabuddha to death by creating a pit of hot coals between him and his donor. Since this story, like all the Jātakas, occurred in the remote past it is not clear whether this is the same Māra as in the time of the Buddha Gotama. In Jātaka 389 we are told of a previous birth of the Māra known from the suttas. In this story he is born as a serpent who attempts to kill the Bodhisatta.
It is beyond the scope of this book to consider the many variations of the Māra character encountered in later schools of Buddhism.715 However, it is hard to resist including an episode from the Sarvāstivāda text the Aśokavadāna (“Legend of King Aśoka”):
Upagupta was an elder bhikkhu living at the time of King Aśoka. He was said to be “a Buddha without the marks.” Māra was not pleased that Upagupta’s teaching was leading many beings to the path that leads out of his domain. Three times he disrupted Upagupta’s sermons. The first time, he caused a shower of pearls to fall upon the audience, who lost all interest in the teaching and scrambled for the precious pearls. The word of this spread, and many more people came for Upagupta’s next sermon, and this time Māra caused a shower of gold coins.
The third time, a very great crowd arrived for Upagupta’s talk and Māra caused a heavenly display of music together with dancing by celestial apsāras (Pali—accharās, “nymphs”). The formerly dispassionate men in the crowd turned away from Upagupta, fascinated by the divine sounds and forms.
Māra was very pleased with himself, and went up to Upagupta and put a garland of flowers around his neck. Upagupta knew it was Māra. The elder took the carcass of a man, a dog and a snake and transformed them into flower garlands. Mār
a was delighted and thought he had won over Upagupta as well and allowed the garlands to be hung around his neck. These transformed back to their natural forms and Māra, a being devoted to sensuality, was appalled. He found that he had no power to remove them.
Māra went to seek help from Mahendra, from Rudra, from Upendra, from the Lord of Riches, from Yama, Varuṇa, Kubera and Vasāva and to many other devas. All of these, and even Brahmā could not remove the carcasses from his neck. Brahmā advised him to return to earth and go for refuge to Upagupta.
He pleaded with Upagupta, appealing to his compassion. In the discussion between these two, Upagupta brought Māra to appreciate the great compassion of the Buddha, and the wickedness of his own ways. Māra was repentant and prostrated before the elder, his mind filled with faith for the Blessed One and he begged to be released from the foul carcasses.
Upagupta agreed on two conditions: Māra must never harass the bhikkhus again and as a personal favour to Upagupta he should manifest the bodily form of the Buddha. “Although I have seen his dharma-body (dharmakāya) I was born too late to see his physical body (rūpakāya).”
Māra readily agreed but stipulated that Upagupta should not bow to the form of the Buddha, “because if one like you venerates one like me, I shall burst into flame.” So, just as he had previously done to mislead Sūrambaṭṭha, Māra manifested the form of the Buddha, together with the thirty-two marks. He appeared in this form accompanied by the forms of the chief disciples and many other renowned arahants of that time. Upagupta was unable to restrain himself at the sight and bowed. But Māra was unhurt, and the elder explained that he was bowing out of reverence for the Buddha, and not to Māra’s person.
Māra went into the city of Mathurā and personally rang the town bell, proclaiming aloud that, “Whoever desires the bliss of heaven and release, should listen to the Dharma of Upagupta. And those who have never gazed upon the Tathāgata, let them look at the elder Upagupta!”716
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