Mara from Buddhist Superstition

Mara, the agent of Death, travels from Hinduism (as the embodiment of Death itself and of the powers of Evil) to become the principal Buddhist demon. He is the tempter, the archenemy of the Buddha, the obstacle to potential Enlightenment, the personification of greed, hatred, and delusion. He tries to lure all spiritual travelers onto the path of worldly desires, which lead to rebirth and not to liberation.

Mara functions to delay the "Coming of the Law". He embodies ego pleasure, worldly pleasure, and sensual delight. Mara is not so much evil (in the sense of sinful) in Buddhist thought as he is the epitome of all that is at the root of duhkha (suffering). It is with that understanding of Mara as a mental state, an embodiment of dis-ease, that he appears in Psyche.

From the Buddhist point of view, as long as humans live in ignorance, craving, and fear, they stay stuck in the cycle of life and death and rebirth and are caught in the realm of Mara. When the Buddha threatens to overturn this rule and is on the verge of bringing a new Way -- a new understanding -- to the world, Mara becomes fiendishly furious. He has everything of this world and every weapon known to the universe at his disposal; most important he holds the entire wheel of life and death in his clutches, and every living thing must die, and every mortal fears Death.