Yeos wrote: “” But isn’t Mara the deva whose “specialty” consists in arising great lust in people ?”
Mahendran wrote: “Is there a relationship between Mara and death? If he is a Deva what is his role and why was he born in that realm? I always misunderstood Mara as ” thought of death” in one’s mind.”
Yes. Both perceptions are out there. The first one more accurate than the second. The second is also accurate in a deeper sense as I discuss below.
As I mentioned above, Mara Devaputta is in the highest deva realm. He has anything that he desires, and he of course enjoys all those sense pleasures. He cannot understand why people want to attain Nibbana. His mindset is that if one attains Nibbana, one will have to give up all such pleasures.
– So, he tries to entice people to indulge in sense pleasures.
– Of course he does not understand that all such “pleasures” will come to an end, and once one is born in an apaya, it is very hard to get out.
But the perception that Mara Devaputta is DIRECTLY associated with death and suffering is not correct, at least in the mundane sense. He is not trying cause direct physical harm to people, or trying to get people to commit murders, as some beings do.
However, in the lokottara sense, Mara can be associated with death, since if one follows him, one will never be able to be free from the cycle of birth and death (or the rebirth process), where one is subjected to much more suffering than any periods of pleasures like when born in such deva realms.
– So, “death” in the lokottara sense is associated with not being able to attain Nibbana.
– Since Mara is trying to prevent people from attaining Nibbana, he can be called an “agent of death”, as the Buddha himself stated. One will never be free from death, if one falls under Mara’s influence.
It is possible that the references Siebe has given may have some of these descriptions.
