On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.118

v2.c19.118

Māra's exhortation to the P'usa referred to in this passage was the beginning of the Evil One's attempts to prevent the P'usa from attaining Buddhahood. In the Introduction to the Jātaka Māra is represented as announcing universal sovereignty to the Prince Siddhārtha when the latter is leaving Kapilavastu to become an ascetic.¹ Other treatises, such as the "Buddha-charita", the "Yin-kuo-ching", the "Hsing-chi-ching", make Māra appear to the P'usa under the Bodhi Tree, and solemnly counsel him to leave that spot, and go to do his duty as a Kshatriya by becoming a Chakravartī ruling over the four divisions of the world, and Lord of earth.² Māra's daughters are three in number, Rati, Arati, and Tṛiṣṇā (or Ragā, Arati, Taṇhā), and they in the legends have recourse to various artifices in the design of seducing the P'usa.³ In some accounts, however, they do not take action until the defeat of their father and all his forces, and they are sometimes represented as flying away from their attempt on the P'usa, or as retiring with his pardon.