Linked Discourses With Māra

Māra accuses the Buddha of having abandoned the path of true austerity.

Māra manifests before the Buddha in the form of a ferocious elephant in order to scare him.

Māra tries to scare the Buddha by taking on shifting forms both beautiful and hideous.

When the Buddha explains to the mendicants how he realized freedom, Māra claims he is still trapped.

When the Buddha explains to the mendicants how he has realized freedom, and so have his mendicant followers, Māra claims he is still trapped.

Māra manifests as a huge serpent, but the Buddha is unshaken.

After meditating all night, the Buddha lies down to sleep at dawn, and Māra scolds him for being lazy.

The Buddha and Māra exchange verses on whether attachments are a source of delight or suffering.

Though the Buddha says that life is short, Māra says it is long.

Though the Buddha says that life is short, Māra says it is long.

Māra smashes boulders in an attempt to scare the Buddha.

Māra criticizes the Buddha for his lion’s roar, asserting that the Buddha is not in fact peerless.

The Buddha rests after being struck by splinters, and Māra criticizes him for being lazy.

Māra discourages the Buddha from teaching, warning him that he will become corrupted by favoritism.

Māra threatens the Buddha with a “mental snare” in the sky.

While the mendicants are listening to the teachings, Māra takes the form of an ox and looks as if he will break their almsbowls.

While the mendicants are listening to the teachings, Māra makes an awful roar to distract them.

Māra ensures that the Buddha fails to get alms, but the Buddha is happy to feed on joy.

While the mendicants are listening to the teachings, Māra takes the form of a farmer looking for lost oxen and addresses the Buddha.

The Buddha wonders whether it is possible to rule justly, without violence. Māra appears and encourages the Buddha to pursue such a path.

Māra approaches some young mendicants as an old brahmin, and tries to tempt them with talk of the pleasures of youth.

Māra repeatedly pesters the monk Samiddhi when he is on retreat. The Buddha encourages him, until eventually Samiddhi is able to recognize Māra for himself.

Venerable Godhika finds himself repeatedly falling away from his meditation attainments due to severe illness. Eventually he considers suicide, and Māra tries to get the Buddha to deter him. But the Buddha says Godhika has already attained awakening and has died blamelessly.

Māra has tried to distract the Buddha for seven years without success. He laments his failure with the similes of a crab whose limbs are smashed by a group of children, and a crow who tried to eat a stone.

Depressed, Māra laments to his three daughters of his failure to distract the Buddha. So they take on the task themselves, and assume a variety of sensuous forms to tempt him. But they fail too, and Māra castigates them for being so presumptuous.