Buddhist · Pali · c. 100 BCE, from oral tradition
The Pali Canon
Anonymous; attributed to the Buddha and his disciples
Mara appears here as the tempter at the Bodhi tree, but the texts repeatedly gloss him as craving and death rather than as a being — demonology and psychology held together on purpose.
Read The Pali Canon in full at the linked edition →What this text attests · 4
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Evil One | — | Assails the Buddha with storms and armies and then with his daughters Craving, Aversion and Passion; is dismissed by being named. | |
Naga = The Naga | Serpent kings | — | Mucalinda shelters the Buddha under his hood through seven days of rain; nagas appear elsewhere as beings capable of taking the precepts. |
Peta = The Preta | Realm of rebirth | — | Not created evil but reborn into constant unsatisfied craving; the state is temporary and exhausts itself. |
Yakkha = The Yakkha | Non-human beings | — | Named throughout the suttas as beings encountered at trees, gates and lonely places, dangerous and convertible; several take refuge after being answered. |
What does it actually say?
The passages themselves, as this text gives them. Read them against what the other texts here say about the same figures — that comparison is the point.
“I see you, Mara.”