Mara, Demon King of the Sixth Realm

Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion, is one of the most well-known figures in India and Tibet. However, his path to illumination wasn’t an easy journey, with one encounter in particular, which will be today's topic of interest. This being is known as Mara, the demon King of the Sixth Realm.

Mara is a recurrent figure in Buddhist texts, being a usual adversary of Prince Siddhartha before he became Buddha. But first, we need to understand where this figure comes from. Unfortunately for us, his origins are incredibly blurry, with no legend covering where this being came from. Regarding inspiration, it is highly debated that its creation might have been inspired by an entity dating back from an even older folklore, now forgotten. It was noted that every culture based in India had its own version of Mara, making him a rather widespread concept.

Regarding his various conflicts with Buddha, there is one for which he is truly known for. The demon always had a grudge against the mortal prince, trying to sabotage his path to enlightenment at every attempt he could. Some of his plots involved sending armies of monsters and demons attacking the human prince during his mediations. Siddhartha somehow survived those encounters; I guess meditation provides you with magical defences, at least against demon kings. He also tried to send one of his daughters to seduce the Prince. But once again, this failed because the Prince was too busy meditating to enlightenment and becoming the immortal figurehead of an entire religion.

The reason why Mara wanted to prevent Siddhartha from reaching enlightenment isn’t because he is a cackling maniac that twirls his moustache over an evil plot. Indeed, Mara thinks that he is the one worthy of reaching enlightenment. During his final clash, Mara challenged Siddhartha to a final duel to determine who would become enlightened. Mara brought his monsters to bear witness over him while calling for whoever would to support his opponent. Here, Siddhartha pulled one of the biggest power moves and got the very Earth itself to give him the thumb up. This vanquished Mara for good, while Siddhartha ascended into Buddha.

I guess that instead of being an asshole, he should have meditated a bit more!