Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.58

c8.58

∗ But not so regarding the mythological significance of the person of Mâra himself as a thunder-demon. It is entirely misleading to call up, in order to explain so simple and transparent a conception as that of Mâra, the whole host of Vedic mythology and symbolical conceptions from the first-born Kâma (Love) to the airy Agni and the demon Namuci. The original and prevailing idea which finds expression in the personification of Mâra, is that of death; the name indicates this clearly enough ("Mâra, in loc. Antaka;" cf. antea, p. 58, note). But that the prince of death is at the same time the ruler of the kingdom of earthly pleasure, the tempter to this pleasure, and is thus connected with Kâma, is adequately accounted for in the course of development, which pre-Buddhist as well as Buddhist speculation has taken (vide antea, p. 58). Least of all can it cause astonishment, when Buddhist poetry occasionally gives to Mâra, the evil enemy, the name of Namuci, a demon, who is named in the Veda as an enemy of Indra (the "Çatapatha Br," xii, 7, 3, 4, also observes in a discussion on Rig V. viii, 14, 13: pâpmâ vai Namuciḥ). The nature of the case forbids us seeking to draw mythological inferences from such uses of names as do not flow from the nature of the being of whom they are used, but are purely secondary. If we speak of the Titanic nature of a Faust, who would venture to build thereon mythological theories as to the origin of the Faust legend? The identity of the Buddhist Mâra with the Mairya (epithet of Ahriman, who tempts Zoroaster) of the Avesta is considerately waived by Senart (p. 244, note) and after his example by Darmesteter ("Ormazd et Ahriman," p. 202).